I hate liars!! I fucking hate liars!! Tell me the truth and I will deal with it, but you lie to me and I sit and stew while I wait . “This is going to happen at this tme” I wait and wait. I say to myself “Oh this might have happened, or that might have occurred.” Then when I find out you cared so little about me that you lied to my face? I become enraged. What benefit is there to lying? Is it to make yourself look better?

Some people do it in such an offhand way, too. They seem to think that it is of no importance. That their words carry no weight. Do they believe that the words dissipate as they come out of their mouths?

To me, they become set in stone as they come out of your mouth. I don’t know where I got that rigid outlook, but I am proud of being accountable for my words! How does the world work without that? Other people rely and make plans based on your words. Be respectful enough to live up to them!

What do I do with you? It’s all academic now I know. You came into my life with your snow white hair, your entreaties to touch your fused spine and you assertions that you just have to get up in the morning and get shit done, spine or not!

I crushed you from the start. I got your number and brought you food. I know about food and it’s my way of connecting. My way of connection is being touched, and you did that.

I knew you owned a bar. Vietnam bar. That’s why I brought you spring rolls, but I didn’t really think it through. Here I was 23 years clean and sober and I was hanging around in a drinking establishment watching guys pass their revolvers around.

It came alot clearer on your birthday though. I was in a space that I couldn’t be in. I will miss your vibrancy and outgoing personality along with the people I briefly met. I miss you!

The hum of the tires on the asphalt. I remember it well. Driving for hours on the prairies. In full sun, dark and rain. On the road for hours. 10, 12, 16. Living in Canada if you wanted to go somewhere or see somebody you had to take those trips.

Then we moved to B.C. and I discovered the joy of real driving. Around the bend, up, down, around, and I liked it. I’ve never raced cars, but I think I would have liked it.

I now live in a country where on most of the roads they have speed bumps.

Fuck speed bumps. There is one stretch of road where there are no towns , or crossings necessitating speed bumps. I fly down that piece of highway with wild abandon. It’s my happy place.

I know a couple who have named the speed bumps. For God’s sake don’t legitimize them like that!! Curse them!!!

Techno beat. The pound of blood in the temples. The arms pumping. The body enslaved to the beat. The muscles pulsating to the rhythm. Drowning out all around.

Acid beat. Like a hallucnogen taking over and vibrating till the sanity is gone from the mind and all that’s left is the beat. The water is gone from the incessant E and dancing

Techno beat. Beat overrides it all, fatigue, hunger, thirst and coherent thought. The beat gets in the bones, the soul.

Techno beat, techno beat, tech beat, tech beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat…

I’m walking along down the street, passing a music store with a Jamaican themed paint job. According to the sign they do passport photos also, along with several other musically unconnected services.

I pass by an irregularly shaped parking lot with some ropes strung across it and then a taco wagon. There is a row of fellows sitting on a low wall in front of the wagon, they are either engaged in conversation, or when it gets to hot a pall of stupor descends on them.

I get to a round about with its traffic cop standing in the middle under the digital sign that more often than not has the wrong time flashing on it. As I am walking I notice spaces between the buildings. These are often strewn with garbage and various items.

On a hot, humid afternoon I am prone to imaging myself turning down into one of these murky areas and entering a rift in time and space. Who knows where I would alight, in the lush pre Mayan rainforest. The hellish time of pestilence spreading conquistadors.

The options are endless. This is why I read.

I have had a full day. I stayed engaged and present, cleaning my fans, what a difference that has made! I also gave my truck new lungs. Changed out a old filter for a new one, hopefully giving new breath.

I step on the dusty running board of that same truck to bump, on the potholed road, through the glaring sun. When I reach my destination I will disembark into the parking lot of a store. Purchasing some needed items.

I will think on how I got here. It’s been 18 months, but still new in the history of my life. I live in Central America! I volunteer at a cat sanctuary, visit friend’s that I have made, and try to keep occupied without numbing.

Lots of extra time on my hands, being retired. There’s always things that can be done, but that is predicated on the heat a lot of the time. Right now I spend time nursing Jefferson back to health, trying to slip him medication in cheese.

The deeper questions hide behind the day to day routine of walking, YouTube watching, cooking and washing my laundry. Am I still sexual at this age? Do I want a relationship? Do I need more in my life?

I am going to bed, perhaps in the refreshing dark I will find some answers.

That sidewalk is a minefield of holes, peaks and troughs. I can’t in my minds eye invision how it got that way, even though I walk it almost every day. It’s not so much that it’s been worn down as it is an obstacle course designed to break ankles.

It requires my full attention to traverse. Head down, eye’s scanning for the irregularities. Will I make it today?? I have a weak left ankle, from an old Frisbee injury, which I have aggravated, twice, recently. You better believe I am focused, seeing as I walk a couple kilometers a day.

I love to walk and it’s my primary source of exercise. It’s how I interact with my surroundings. I would struggle without it. It keeps my blood pressure in check. It gives me a sense of accomplishment every day and I sleep better because of it.

I’ve got to tell you though. I feel that stretch of sidewalk is out to get me,

I have a cat laying on a pillow in the cat room. He is in a deep torpor, he had his teeth cleaned two hours ago. He was quite ill, hadn’t been eating, or drinking much, so he isn’t in the best shape for anesthetic.

So I wait. I wait to see if my beloved Jefferson will wake up. I experience the passage of time in trepidation! Time to wait. I sometimes wish for time to pass by me, slip around me, but it never does. It always affects me in some way or other.

I meditate, the hardest part being to separate myself from time, letting myself float in limbo. I guess I am not really separating from time, because it always wears on me. It carries me through it, whether I protest or not

I said I try to meditate. I do, but how successfully I am not sure! I find myself focused on my breathing, but quickly I will be thinking of that time I did this, thought that, experienced something. Back to time!

I would give anything, though for Jefferson to wake up this time, because I love him, and that’s due to the time I’ve spent with him.

I don’t have to denigrate all I do as not being enough, right, or proper.

I can let my actions be enough, and I care for others.

I want things, and when I don’t get them, through one reason or another, I numb the pain. It’s not even that I would be better off having what I want.

I have empathy for others, but God forbid I give some to myself. I feel fraudulent at times, and I wonder how others could love me?

I feel like a hamster on a wheel sometimes and others frozen with fear.

I don’t need to question myself! I have people around me who love me. I know they do!

I have Jefferson and Ferguson. I love them with my heart. I will give them the care I can. This I can do, and not more.

I’ve got curtains all over my life, thick, heavy, embroidered ones, made of brocade and weighted to make moving them hard. They are for the trauma, the incidents of brokeness that i don’t want to, or can’t visit. Vaporous, gossamer ones that shift all the time, allowing me to glimpse behind them and either glory, or wallow in the times behind them. Sometimes wallow in the glory.

I know there’s a point to this, I just can’t grasp it at the moment.