Morning Pages Day 10 – Jan 18, 2022

Is it weird that I’m feeling a little sentimental right now? I’m feeling it for Sharon, but though she seems so far from my mind so much of the time, she’s all around me, in all the possessions that I ninety-eight percent have her to thank for. The rest is my man stuff, though she played a part in all of that too. She was there for every major purchase. All my music stuff. The quad. The bicycle. Whatever I needed, she was in favor of me buying, and she’d often make the purchases, since she had online accounts back then, and I didn’t.

Anyway, shifting gears, I had a song I was working on. I’m shifting out of melancholy, but not really. I’m just moving into a more ambiguous, jaded, emotionally unavailable phase. I am post-grieving, but also post just about everything. I better write the words down before the idea completely escapes me.

It’s called “I’m Too Fucked Up For Love.”

We can do all the things you want to do

Hold hands, call each other sweetheart too

Go for walks, text and talk

Make reservations for hotels

Run up our gas bills

And try to get each other’s pets to be cool

It can be just about everything you’ve dreamed of

But honey, I’m just too fucked up for love

 

Putting on our raincoats, we can

Walk along the beach

Take a day or two of freedom

So we can find ourselves some peace

When will these inner voices cease?

I’m being vilified for my deeds, but my needs I must appease

Captain Courageous, step up to the plate, please

----

OK, let me just say that I started out

This thing—with the best of intentions

Something decided to invade my mind

Rendering me completely under its spell

And I can’t question it; that will just be that

I have an arrangement with myself inside my head

----

No, really. The semi-rhymie poetry crap, I don’t do so well. If I rhyme too strictly, it seems trite. It’s a limericky sort of affair, or nursery rhyme sounding crap that’s just so banal. I can’t get myself to write good songs.

I will be back to criticize myself later. It is late, but I thought I’d get an early start, since technically it is morning. It has been a long day. I’ll tell ya about it tomorrow, when it is today. I mean, it is already, but after I sleep for a bit and then wake up. Later. ‘Sout

----

Later, it is. And I will forestall re-reading this last bit of early morning poetry, since I already can tell by my closing that I was probably higher than I’d like to admit when I wrote it.

Sharon always used to poke at me, “So, how high are you?” I always responded with my thumb and forefinger, making the sign for “this much.” She would laugh and spread her hands way apart, like she was estimating the size of a rather large fish. “More like THIS much,” she would laugh. I couldn’t get anything past her.

I woke up at about 8:30 AM this morning. I don’t feel like I could conquer the world today, but I’m not as godawful tired as I was on Sunday. Those Saturday music dates really take it out of me. Yesterday, I chopped wood and hoisted my amp, possibly straining my groin, but still I am not as tired as I was on Sunday.

So, my amp arrived yesterday. It was a day early. It came on the UPS truck while I was sitting out on my front porch. Good thing I was out there, since the gate was shut, and they would have wound up having to re-deliver. Seeing the condition the box was in, I’m glad it didn’t have to spend any more time in his truck. The driver dropped it on the lawn when his dolly upended on the uneven grass in my front yard.

I managed to get it into the house and unbox it. Poorly packaged, it only had a single layer of bubble wrap inside of a cardboard box. The only item they really went all out on was the tape. They must have used a whole roll of extra heavy duty packaging tape. It gave the cardboard a transparent skin that could probably make the whole thing waterproof to 10 meters.

When I first fired it up, it sounded horrible. A loud hum and weak, jangly audio. Just like my other amp. I went outside to feed the guinea hens and shut the gate. It was humming so loud that I could hear it from the back deck. I came back in and resumed playing with it, bringing out my strat for the occasion.

I fiddled with the knobs, and one came off in my hands. So much for the pull-out boost. Someone had replaced the pot with a non-pull out variety and glued the knob on with rubber cement. The Tolex has a few rough spots, and the front faceplate has a ding that I couldn’t see in the pictures. Other than that, and the fact that it probably fell off the back of the UPS truck, it looked in decent enough shape.

Concerned about the hum, I called my amp guy, Skip Simmons. Skip is the whole reason that I bought an older Fender like this one. I had no idea of the differences between the tube amps of today vs. the ones made 40 years ago. Apparently, the hand wired circuitry was better than the printed circuit stuff they have today. Anyway, he only works on the older ones, and seeing as how all tube amps need work from time to time, I thought I’d buy one that my local guy could work on.

Skip’s fame in the amp repair business is legendary. Pros from all over the country ship their antique amps to him to restore. I knew that whatever was wrong with it, he’d be able to fix. Just dialing his number must have gotten the amp calmed down, since it stopped making the hum by the time he answered the phone.

“Do you work on Fender Twin amps?” I asked him.

“For you, of course,” he said. He was always saying nice things like that because we are neighbors and we went through the Cascade Fire together.

 “I wasn’t sure,” I said, “since these things are so heavy. I thought they might be on the list of stuff you don’t work on anymore.”

“Nah, man. Since it’s you, I’ll look at it. I’d even look at some piece of crap newer printed circuit amp for you, just cause it’s you,” he said.

I hit the jackpot with Skip. He’s a good egg. I met him during the Camp Fire when I was housing an evacuee and his mom. Greg Miller, my temporary refugee, was a kindhearted soul, and an old friend of Sharon’s. When the Camp Fire threatened their home in Berry Creek, he and his mom (and three dogs and two cats) all stayed at my house for a week or so. During that time he managed to burn some broccoli in a pan by letting all the water boil out. He also left for a half a day with the crock pot on high. If I hadn’t turned it down, all the water would have boiled out of that as well.

Greg was as kind and thoughtful toward people as he was clumsy. When he accidentally broke the on/off switch on my subwoofer by packing the closet too full of stuff, he searched and searched until he could find a guy locally to look at it. He helped me load the monstrous speaker cabinet in my car, and we drove it over to Skip Simmons’ house. Skip doesn’t work on printed micro circuits, but he took the speaker in to look at it anyway.

Skip took the board out and examined it. Too delicate of a repair job for him, he knew of a guy in Sac that would do the work for a reasonable price. He offered to ship the board to him, so I didn’t have to drive down there, and he never even asked for the money for freight. I did wind up giving him a big bag of weed, since he wouldn’t take any cash. He was appreciative, although, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t up to the standards of anyone in the market for weed these days. Damn those kids and their hydroponics.

I'm reaching the end of the page, and this story is going nowhere, kinda like me. The end.

 

"A kiss between friends"

I dreamed of Sharon again last night. It was 1997, and we were in that stage of a relationship where things are firming up, and one has to decide whether or not to be exclusive with their affections. At least, that was the stage she believed we were in, whereas, I apparently believed we were much further along. 

We were playing house, living in my decrepit, tiny particle board home, and we'd decided to throw a party. People were arriving while we were still cleaning the place up from the initial move-in. I was getting a little upset because there were so many things to be done, and guests were already there, entertaining themselves and making a bigger mess.

"What is all this crap?" I exploded at a case of recyclable water bottles that I found wedged inside a space between an outbuilding and the fence. 

I looked over at Sharon in some kind of accusatory fashion and saw that she was talking with a guy to whom I'd been trying to sell a guitar amp earlier. He was a portly fellow with a Brillo pad of dark frizz for hair and thick black framed glassed that made his eyes bug out just a bit. 

When I was showing him the amp, it appeared that the amp wasn't working, so I fiddled with the dials until I finally got enough sustain to satisfy me. It was my mom's cheap Crate amp, so one couldn't really expect anything marvelous. I handed him my guitar, a well worn instrument upon which much finger skin had been shed by me over the years.

"Uh, gross, dude!" he exclaimed upon seeing the flaky residue on the strings.

"It's not for sale, just the amp," I said defensively. "Those are the original strings, and that skin reflects years of shredding, so there!"

He left and rejoined the party. He was interested in the amp, but he was more interested in Sharon, it appeared. I'd gone back to cleaning up the property, while the party was in full swing, and it was at this point that I looked over and saw the two of them talking quite intimately. My "what is all this crap" comment must have registered with Sharon as an outburst of jealousy, because she grabbed the frizzy haired, bug-eyed boy and kissed him firmly on the mouth.

"A kiss between friends," she said unapologetically.

I fumed and continued the cleanup, trying to think of a good retort. Soon, I found a bunch more things wrong with the place that had apparently gone unnoticed during the home inspection. There was a trailer on the property that was damp and full of mold. I opened the door to air it out and went around looking for more things to stew about. 

The place was as full of people now as it was full of uncompleted cleanup projects. I was going around with a garbage bag full of recyclables which finally burst at the seams, leaving a giant mess in the middle of the yard and eliciting more curses from me. A young girl and her mother accosted me as I was walking up the stairs to retrieve another garbage bag.

"I'm mad at you!" the little blond teenager said, in a serious tone.

I looked at her, and then at her mother, and tried to figure out if I even knew them. I couldn't place either of them, so I asked the girl:

"What did I ever do to you? If I've done something to offend you, I apologize, but really, I don't believe we've ever met." 

She looked at me with steely blue eyes that had a hint of mischief in them. "I was waiting at the bus stop, late for school, and you passed me by on your motorcycle," she said with an air of indignant outrage. "You didn't even offer to pick me up!" 

"I'm not going to offer a ride on my motorcycle to a stranger, and especially not a girl as young as you," I replied. "How old are you anyway?" 

"I'm fifteen," she said. 

Her face said, "I'm plenty old enough, you ageist, sexist fuck."

"That settles it," I said, and I proceeded up the stairs with my armful of recyclables, my attention focused elsewhere. 

I was still mad about Sharon's newfound friend and the kiss they had shared. I noticed that they were still hanging around together in the garage, and I went in to make myself obtrusive. As if to make my point for me, a giant tractor trailer pulled into the garage, pinning Mr. Frizz Bug to the wall just as he was about to make his move, effectively separating Sharon and him for the moment.

Good, I thought to myself. I'd wished that the truck would have run him over, but this would do. Oh, well, at least I was some teenage girl's unrequited pickup fantasy, so there was that small consolation. The dream ended, leaving me with the bitter taste of jealousy in my parched, dehydrated mouth.

Mad Max

 

I dreamed Sharon and I were living in Paradise again, and she wasn't disabled. Far from it, actually, and she was up to her old tricks. She had a wandering eye (and two wandering legs, apparently). She was scheming about a threesome, a fantasy she kept trying to persuade me to help her fulfill. This time, instead of fighting it, I went along with the idea, at least in principle. 

We decided on a candidate, someone of her choosing. He was a CBer named Mad Max, a big strapping diesel mechanic with a gruff demeanor over the radio but a puppy dog in person. With his bib overalls and gingham shirt, he reminded me of a cross between Forrest Gump and the Andre the Giant. I liked him, but not in "that" way. Sharon liked him and figured he'd fit the bill. 

We met with him in the parking lot of Ray's Liquor, and Sharon propositioned him. His eyes lit up, and a big Cookie Monster grin spread across his kind but oafish face.

"I'm in!" he said excitedly. "When do we begin?' He was even rhyming like the ogre-like character in The Princess Bride.

"Hold on, Tiger," I told him. "Let's go back to the house first. We have to establish some ground rules."

We all took separate cars back to our place, but when we arrived, Max had brought along a friend. It was an older gentleman from his church named Glen, who reminded me of Ed Begley, Jr.

I didn't like how the math was adding up, so I lingered outside for a moment as Sharon and Max went inside. Glen got cold feet and left before any of the action, and I was left outside with my lower lip quivering in an expression Sharon and I referred to as "The Bear." 

"Not The Bear!" she said, feigning incredulity. "Don't worry, Sweetie, there's enough of me to go around."

Sharon had picked up on my petulance and come out to ask if I was still OK with everything. I told her that I was, and that she and Max should get started, and I'd join them in a minute. She didn't need too much persuading, and she was back in the house and unclothed in under a minute. 

Whatever she and Mad Max did, it didn't take more than a minute, and soon he emerged, fully clothed, and drove off. I did likewise, and as I drove around Paradise in my white Honda Accord listening to the CB radio, a faint voice came through the static:

"Do you know what the problem was?" the voice inquired.

I couldn't place the voice right away, but as I kept driving, it became clear to me.

"Do you know what the problem was, Andrew?" the voice repeated, calling me by name.

It was Sharon, of course. I drove back in the direction of home, and picked up the handset to reply:

"No, what?" I asked.

"He was a church boy. A Seventh Day Adventist. And it's Saturday, so he couldn't do anything." 

Sharon always did have a distaste for SDAs, simply because their religious services always interfered with her fun.

By now, I was already parked outside the house, and I went in to find a still naked Sharon sitting on the couch. I dispensed with the CB mic, which I was still talking into even though we were face to face.

"You'd think that Saturday would be his happy day, though, right?" I said, applying my own logic to the situation.

"That's not how it works with those guys," she said. "His buddy Glen was a perfect example."

"I didn't know how that was going to work in the first place," I told her. "The gears didn't seem like they were going to mesh." 

She and I had never discussed any of my leanings or proclivities, and now didn't seem to be the time to bring them up. Still a bit jealous and insecure about her and Mad Max's brief encounter, I reached around and felt her backside. It was a bit clammy, but it gave me reassurance that no hanky-panky had taken place.

"Just checkin'," I grinned. 

"I guess it's just you and me," she smiled back as the curtain closed on the dream.

----

It's been nearly month since I've had dreams of any sort. I suppose it's not odd that I should have a dream like this now, since I've recently been sleeping on our old bed. After many months of sleeping on the downstairs couch, my back finally began to protest, and I reluctantly brought myself back to the scene of so many memories, some happy, some not so happy.

It's Saturday, so I'm going to get my own religious ritual going. If you aren't already familiar with what that is, don't ask, because I won't tell. It's for Super Secret Squirrel's Club members only.