Birthday Weekend

California DMV, Blythe.
I made it Just before the doors closed,
and my license expired.

Awesomely carmely free birthday drink,
from starbucks on my birthday.
And right about the time that I needed a pick-me-up.

Nothing like a little flag action.

When I arrived in L.A. this is what I came home to.

And This gorgeous gal of course.

Here's my Niece modeling the pants I made for her.

Believe it or not, we are enjoying a game of dominoes.

DON'T mind the JOB GAP!

So if you're like me, which I hope you are, cause I'm about to spew my frustration in hopes that you may relate, or understand someone better, someone like myself.

     I am a triangle who doesn't fit into a square.  A square that doesn't fit into a circle.  A Circle that doesn't fit into a triangle....etc...etc...  Good you get it.  That was fast.

     When it comes to trying to fit the look of a bill, sometimes I find myself having a hard time conceiving the expectation.  AKA, selling out.  However you wanna look at it.  It's kinda like how people get down on bands for getting popular, signed, and then changing their sound.  Yeah it sucks, exactly! Because bands were always their best when they first got discovered, and then there's that thing about getting signed, and then there's the obligation to maintain a legal agreement, and you lose part of yourself in all of that, and sometimes you lose all the best parts about yourself, your element, the thing that made you you, your inspiration.  And as artists, and free lancers, we don't like boxes and cubicles, which is why I've always bucked any kind of bandwagon, and avoid crowds, and initially don't like anything that everyone likes, and styles that everyone is wearing, until the mystique and fanfare wares off, and then right when people are like "I don't like it!" That's when I know, or feel, that it's ok for me to like or do something again.  And you know what, I'm just geared that way.  It seems like I've been swimming in the opposite direction my whole life.

     Sure I had bouts of conformity, when I was a young, impressionable, dependent on my parents, youth, scared shitless about religion, sexuality, and was trying to conform so hard, that I was an asshole.  But I shed all that bullshit a long time ago, and now I'm as free as I can be from institutionalized b.s.  But now I am like, "I can never go back."  Conforming to societal expectations would kill me!  Haircut?  Sellout.  Clean clothes?  Sellout.  Cubicle? Suit?  Sellout.  Daily showers?? SELLOUT! (DISCLAIMER:  For those of you who love working steady jobs, and have no problem looking the part and fitting in, then it's easy for you to do.  I'm just crying about how I don't fit the role, and I struggle with it. Ok, so now that I didn't offend anyone. Let's move on.)

    I'm constantly chasing career objectives that would allow me to establish myself in non-conforming independence, so that I don't have to cater to societal expectations of gender norms and job roles.  So I'm kinda fucked whenever it comes to being between jobs, and I'm staring the "find-a-job" demon in the face.  "Crap!"

     My job resume is so random, and time frames are so incongruous.  It's like digging through the 'free random book bin' outside the library.  I always leave out embarrassing jobs, even if there is a "GAP" in employment.  Which there are plenty of gaps, and long ones, too.  Like what the hell was I doing the year of 2009?  Oh, yeah, embarrassing job for 2 months, they picked on me so hard, they made me cry.  I refused to work until I rode all those blues away on my two-wheeler, hence the "Wild Child Northern and Southern Tour."  But I can't exactly put that on my resume, now can I?

It's the "find-a-job" pressure, when I start getting down on myself for not fitting the easy "here's-a-job" model.  Like if I could just look the part, life would be so much easier.  But I refuse to, even if I put on a clean button up, it grates at my psyche, because it's not me!  And I just want the world to want ME!   And so I plug strugglingly forward for career, and financial, skill-developed independence.

Here I go!

19

Why I didn't take more pictures of last weekend, I don't know.  I started wanting to just remove myself from capturing moments, to living in moments.  But then I'm like, wait I should have taken a pic of that.  Doggone.  Well, It goes a little something like: Phoenix was blazing hot 118.  Me and my woman and another couple rode into the hills to escape the heat.  Destination Prescott, AZ.  Granted it was in the upper 90's but it certainly beats 118.  There was a dark cluster of rain clouds, that i was most definitely hoping to get a little bit of, while we were up there.  We rode to a small park on the outskirts of town, with a pretty stagnant pond, and some pretty happy ducks.  The clouds overhead grew bigger and darker.  And a downpour ensued for about 2 hours.  After the initial allure of getting all my clothes drenched and dancing in the rain.  I sought shelter with my friends under a picknic shade.  It reminded me of an East Coast rainstorm.  It was coming down hard and fast at about a 50 degree angle.  Each drop was the size of a bucket.  Well, being wet suddenly lost it's allure when it got cold, and I realized there was no drying off anytime soon. Nonetheless, I knew I'd look back at this day and say "that was hella fun."  Well, first decent break in the torrent, we broke for our bikes, and headed further into town to find a place to eat and dry off.  This was my first time in Prescott, and what a quaint little town it is.  I come from a quaint little town myself, and it was a nice familiar feeling being there.  Where the main center of town, is built around the old courthouse, which sits in the center of a park.  I just love the way towns used to be built and planned back then.  When it came time to leave, we were planning on heading out the back route and take another way home than we'd come.  But that road, we were told, was not a good way to go, because a town down the road was being evacuated due to an enormously out of control fire.  And so we headed back home the way we'd come.  The next day we would get news of the 19 firefighters that lost their lives in that same evacuated town just a few miles away from where we were getting a torrential downpour.  It's funny how the rain clouds will form at a certain elevation, and due to winds, it will blow it completely out of the range of where it needs to be.  Well, maybe it's working to protect and dampen the fires advancement, so that when it reached the hills, it couldn't do it's damage.  Things work themselves out.  Well, all that reading and I'm finally bringing you some photos.

Old Dam

Lots of color blooming up there.

SuperMoon

Off-roading between the 17 and Sedona.

Saloon/restaurant at the Western Museum 

How to lounge on a hot day.

WW2-ish

Shelter from the sun.

Another mans treasure...

Break in the storm

A Downpour on a hot day.

Dam

Almost there. Assembled, but not finally tweaked.

A Good Sport

The bug that cooled my forehead.

50 miles outside of Palm Springs along the 10 East.  A startlingly cool wet sensation smacked my forehead, splattering a little on my glasses, but nestling itself on my lower forehead area above my glasses rim and below my helmet shell.  MMmmmmm, I checked it out a couple times in the lone left side mirror.  I think I could make out what looked like long legs, and remains of a soft fuzzy body.  I left it there unwiped until I forgot it was there and whilst it remained forming a symbiotic relationship with my furrowed brow, for the duration of my 7 hour trip from LA to Phoenix.

     I was a flapping yellow circus tent.  Dawning a bright yellow rain poncho that I'd bought the night before, anticipating the morning ride.  This thing held nothing together, only knowing how to flap like the dickens, like we were signaling for help on a deserted island.  Everyone for miles could see me coming and going, I'm sure.  And that's exactly how I wanted it: morning LA drivers, first rainy day in a while, crazy, disoriented, wild, and I had to be just as loud and obnoxious as the lot of them if I was going to survive headfirst into that battlefield:  LA drivers.

      I was averaging approximately 70 miles per hour, and that is even given the 60mph speeds I was maintaining through an hour of rain, as I left LA in one of its last spring dumps before summer.  Or so I'm assuming one of its last, with the ferocity that it came.  It was quite the skyfall.  Cleansing the streets.  I remember being like, eh, this isn't bad, and then 15 - 20 minutes before I got out of San Bernardino, the sky got its darkest, and the rain got its thickest, and my glasses got their foggiest, and I was guessing where the road was at times.

     I couldn't wait for the first dry gas stop. East of Palm Springs. Sun shining. I shed the layers of plastic bag taped leggings, filling up a small bathroom trash can.  I took a brief moment to admire my Darwinian acuity, ascending victoriously from the freeway front lines.  And then I was back to counting the miles and hours till my destination.  Beating the clock is what it's all about on a ride like today:  Evening class, a long ride, a rainy trip, averages and analyses.

Long trip short:  7 hours later I rode the sidewalk along the right side of the house to the front door where I park my bike.  I was home.

All wrapped up and ready to ride.
I left Phoenix for LA  Friday afternoon, wearing only my jean vest and my jeans, "packing light" I said.  After all it was in the 90's, and I was not anticipating needing to check weather forecasts at all.   However lucky I am, my woman was kind enough to dress me up with some warm clothes, and help tape the plastic bags around my legs.  Not to mention, she got up earlier than me and made coffee and had cereal set out.  

Kicking back at a sunny gas stop.

The remains of the rains strapped to my guitar.  Yes that's what the tall plastic wrapped thing is.  My number 1 excuse for a sissy bar.

Poncho melted to my pipe.

Arizona with my woman.

Lake Pleasant

I do love this little spot.

Did a little picnic shopping on the way.

Lately!

hallways at work.

Doodling in class.

Change your fork fluid.

Ghettofied operations.

Took a hike at 7:30 am up Thunderbird park.

The foam inserts on the bed I made.

Treats.

official.

GTFO, bob and brandon!

Freedom, and Creation.

My Etsy site: DirtyFree

I had to get all this shit off the floor.

My room looks so much more orderly now.