Just Writing

I move through a world of light and shadow; of breezes scented by wet oak leaves and pine; of forgotten roads and lost highways; of deserted buildings and towns with no names.

I dwell on a road leading down to the sea, in a yellow cottage with white trim. A walk leads up from the road, through a gate and to the front door. Tall grass waves in the summer breeze and girls in cotton dresses bend over to pick the wild flowers.

I haunt disused pastures and shady country lanes. I walk beside old fences and rest in sun-dappled spots of shade and feel the stillness of midday in a quiet, lonely spot.

I walk down lonely roads and empty city streets; see faces unknown but strangely familiar, never stopping to speak, moving on.

I commune with ghosts and spirits of loved ones passed as if I were in their world or they in mine.

I visit here fleetingly in dreams but once I may never come back.

This is just another post to take up space and force the previous post down a notch and, I hope, out of view. That last one is really a waste, as posts go, and as so many of mine are. “Why not just delete it?” you might ask. Well, one of the rules of blogging is that you don’t delete posts: once published, they must stay.

Which causes me to ask myself, “Why are you doing this at all?” And further, “Why do you create and maintain seemingly worthless web sites and spend time learning programming languages and worrying about snippets of code that you don’t understand and can’t figure out?” Why? Hell, I don’t know. Some people play golf, right? Nobody asks them why, do they?

This computer stuff has sort of a stigma attached to it for those who really don’t understand, though. I mean, sometimes in the middle of the night I’ll get an idea and slip into my office and go to work. Harmless, right? No. My wife thinks I’m in there chatting with young girls and looking at porn. I’ve never chatted in my life and I don’t look at porn anymore. I’m just writing stuff, trying to learn a little PHP and MySQL, uploading files to my servers, tweaking a little HTML and CSS and generally wasting time and bandwidth. I guess that’s the problem, the wasting time. If I could only make a little money at it, that would show her, ha!

Anyway, I’ve wasted a lot of time in my life and will probably waste a lot more if I live long enough. Heck, time’s free isn’t it?

I also spend (waste) time playing classical guitar. Again, alone in my chamber. I work on scales and obscure 19th century pieces and struggle with difficult passages and lose sleep over bad practice sessions and (the other day) got so frustrated I almost destroyed my guitar. Why do I do this? Hell, I don’t know. If I could only make a little money at it, that would show her, ha!

That’s it, isn’t it? The money defines the thing. If it makes money it’s not a waste of time. I’ve never been good at making or holding on to money. When I don’t have it I can’t spend it and when I do I spend it up. Savings? Forget about it.

But I keep trying and wasting time and, yippee! I wrote my own autoresponder using PHP and MySQL and I nailed that Bach piece I’ve been working on and…hey, I think that about did it, didn’t it? Pushed that last post slam out of view.

Business at my “real job” has been a little – no – very slow here lately so I have had time and have felt the necessity to work and focus more on some of my side stuff.

For several years I have thinking about and laying the groundwork for the day that I could quit the rat-race and make a living doing things that I really like. I mean, who wouldn’t love to be able to turn their hobbies into income-producing businesses?

There are a lot of things that I like to do, but I have narrowed the list down to those that seem most feasible for business ventures. I must add that I am particularly interested in Internet marketing and all of my ventures lend themselves well to that.

I have heard it said that it is best to find one thing that you do well and focus on that. I have always found that difficult to do – I’m interested in too many things. The neat thing is that now, with the Internet, it’s possible for someone such as myself, with limited means and broad interests, to start and run an on-line business (or businesses).

Well, here’s a list of my endeavors.

• Classical Guitar – Offering private and group lessons and on-line tips and resources. Web site – guitarskool.com
• Writing and Editing – Copywriting and editing services and online grammar tips. Web site – thegrammarmeister.com (coming soon)
• Computing, Web Development and Wordpress Deployment – zencomputing.biz (coming soon)
• General Foolishness – Booshink.com (you’re here, baby)
• Alternative Living – plumnearly.com (coming soon)
• Internet and Network Marketing – thecandleplan.com and all of the above

There you have it – Booshink Enterprises!

All of the domains mentioned above are mine, bought and paid for, and I intend to create sites for each of them (some I have already, obviously).

Necessity is the mother of invention (please excuse the cliche) they say and necessity is forcing me to begin work and the promotion of myself and my sites in earnest. That being said, may I add that if you haven’t noticed may I point out to you that I am affiliated with several companies and that I feature ads over there in the sidebar occasionally promoting same. Those aren’t there just to make the site look better – I’m trying to earn a little revenue thereby. I sell books, art prints, posters and t-shirts through these affiliates and would appreciate it if you would remember me the next time you’re in the market for such items – or, heck, just go over there now and click on some of them (they won’t bite) and check things out. Of course you can also just give out of the goodness of your heart and to further the cause.

Well, that’s about it for now. Thanks for visiting and come back often.

I hear crickets. The night is clear and cool, almost cold, and there is a slight dampness in the air and I hear these bold, Southern crickets out early in late winter, eager for spring.

The crickets and the daffodils come first, then the whippoorwill. But now it’s just the cool March air and the twinkling dark sky and the waving rise and fall of the crickets’ song.

I know, I’ve put way too many links over there (you know, in the sidebar).

Note: I have since moved all of my links to a separate page called, uh, Links.

The experts say not to do that. I put them there for myself, though, you see. Since I come here a lot, it’s easier for me to keep up with sites I like by putting them over there than by bookmarking them. Any stray readers who happen to stumble in here may find something of interest there as well.

Plus, the guys at Wordpress devised this neat little widget thing that I can click on and automatically add the web page I happen to be viewing to my links list. The temptation to Link This is just too great.

Anyway, the last link I added is to Jeff Kay’s West Virginia Surf Report and it’s a pretty cool site, so check it out.

Oh, and from time to time the Shameful Commerce Division of Booshink Enterprises may put some links over there in an attempt to make money.

And, right or wrong, the hula girl stays.

There, I hope this helps clarify things for both of my readers.

I have really felt the economic crunch here in the trucking business. At least I have a job but money has been tight. That and other concerns have had me feeling pretty depressed lately. My sister told me the other day that I needed to perk up. I do.

I will. I’m ready for a new direction. I have been involved with a network marketing company for awhile that really provides the opportunity to achieve financial freedom to anyone who is willing to work at it. We sell candles. Sounds pretty simple and it is, yet some of our distributors are earning in the 6 digits. But more than that, this business has allowed me to network with some very positive, talented and just plain good people and I need that.

Instead of worrying about the way things are going, I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to start working MY business with increased vigor and with the intention of getting out of the truck and off the road for good.

Will write more about the business and how it’s going as things develop.

Maybe today is a day of change.
Maybe today begins a new direction.
Maybe truth will prevail.

Maybe we will exalt God.

Maybe time will stop.

Here’s wishing my friends, family and both of my faithful readers a happy and peaceful day and many more to come.

It’s been awhile since I have written anything worth posting so I thought I would write something whether it was post-worthy or not. (I have been on the road a lot in the past few weeks and those endless empty miles just seem to numb my brain.) I have a lot of good intentions but most of them seem to blow out the window along with my cigarette smoke. So, this is a post written just for the sake of getting words down and a post up and as a feeble attempt to try to keep some semblance of life in this blog.

Blog. That’s a silly word. I don’t like it. I don’t consider myself a “blogger.” I began using a blog platform because it was so much easier than coding and updating my site in HTML and JavaScript. I use WordPress and I like it and it serves my needs well. Actually, one might ask why I even need a site at all, blog-driven or otherwise, and one (meaning me) might answer, “Well, I don’t need one but I like having one and I can have one so I do.”

I like fooling around with computers and learning programming languages and designing databases and hard-coding web pages and stuff like that. Why, I don’t know. I never liked or was good at math (not that that matters, I guess, but it seems as if most computer geeks are math whizzes) and I don’t consider myself the geeky type. My wife says that that tendency (liking computers) is true to my sign. I’m an Aquarius. I don’t know what that means.

This is a blog, then, but I’m not a blogger. I think true bloggers get off on interacting with their community of like-minded bloggers. You know, setting up feeds and link trading and commenting and all that stuff. I don’t interact very well, even with myself.

So, where does that leave me? Why, right here where I am, of course. And I’m going to write something that will take the blogging world by storm; it will be so viral that it will be more contagious than the bird flu; it will spread so fast and furiously that it will melt T1 lines and crash servers. Not only all that but it will be clever and witty and thought-provoking and…

Oh, hell, that was the phone. Got to hit the road again. Guess we’ll have to wait ’til next time.

‘Bye.

I drive a truck for a living: a big truck – the kind with 18 wheels. James Taylor once wrote in a song, “Mr. 9 to 5 in your Coup De Ville will never know how it feels to really roll roll roll.” I roll. I have been reluctant to reveal that information (that I’m a trucker) on this blog for some reason. Maybe I thought that whatever readers there were who might stumble across this site might think less of me for it. Pretty insecure, huh? That’s not all I’ve ever done for a living in my life and times, though. I’ve been a carpenter, a salesman, a manager, a teacher, a sailor, a cab driver and some other things I won’t mention. I have a bachelor’s degree in Music and an MA in teaching (English). Some of my favorite things are reading, writing, classical guitar, chess and fly fishing. But truck driving seems to stick. I keep coming back to it. What’s the point of all this? I don’t know. Maybe if I keep writing I’ll come up with something.

Back in 1982 when I went on the road for the first time, it was fun and exciting. Everyday was something new – new places and new things. I remember the first time I came over the mountains at night and saw Las Vegas below, lighting up the desert or rolled down I-10 into LA. I still love to drive through the desert at night. I remember drinking with an old Indian in Whitefish Montana and driving down Park Avenue in NYC.

Maine to Miami, San Diego to Seattle and everything in between. I’ve ridden down the old Route 66 from east to west and come down Cabbage Pass with no brakes. It’s a lonely life and a hard one and it’s starting to tell on me. Caffeine and nicotine keep me going now. Used to be reefer and amphetamines. Bad food and long lonely nights. Most of the good old truck stops and diners are gone now, too. Everything now is slick and sterile. No character.

I’m getting tired of the road. Mainly I hate public restrooms, fast food and being away from home. And the traffic is terrible. Everybody going nowhere real fast. I just take it slow and easy and kind of let the rest of the world go by. I don’t get in a hurry. No need to.

The fine moments of surprise and excitement are few and far between now. But sometimes I open my eyes and see white fluffy clouds in a sharp blue sky or snow-capped mountains in mid-summer or an old country lane going nowhere or a storm building out over the Gulf and I think, “It could be worse. I could have a real job.”

It’s honest work. We’re paid by the mile and we earn every dollar we make and it seems lately that we are mostly disrespected and misunderstood. We are probably among the most well informed people in America. Heck, we listen to the radio 24 hours a day, including NPR and Coast to Coast. If you have any doubt that we know a lot of stuff, just ask any one of us. We’ll tell you all about it.

I’m looking for a way out of it (the truck) now. I ride along and dream of having a little office in town and giving guitar lessons and doing computer work – maybe playing a gig now and then. I’m good at English. Maybe I could open an English shop. I could sell footnotes, undangle dangling participles and re-place misplaced modifiers. I live on (what could be) a small farm. I’d like to raise goats and chickens and grow organic vegetables.

But I’m too young to retire and too broke and scared to quit. There are bills to be paid. And the road is still out there, like a siren, singing its bittersweet song. And maybe, just maybe, there’ll be something new around the next bend.

I was thinking about grits the other day. I thought about eating grits at my grandmother’s house when we were all there. I remember my uncle Bill teasing my wife because her’s (her grits) were too thin. He said you could eat them through a straw. She makes them just right now: thick and with just enough salt. He put sugar on his. I loved Bill, but sugar on grits, in my mind, is just not right.

I was thinking that it would be neat to open a place and sell nothing but grits. I would call it, uh, Grits. I would have a grits buffet – grits and all the toppings. Butter (for the stout-hearted) and margarine (for the dainties) and cheese and bacon and country ham and red-eye gravy and salmon patties and grilled shrimp and sardines and buttered toasted biscuits with jelly and cane syrup to go along with it all.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but down in Louisiana the other day what should I read about but grits buffets. The article was in the lifestyles section of the paper and it seems that grits buffets are all the rage now for parties and entertaining among those in the know in Baton Rouge. See, I’m not out of touch.

Grits. It will take the country, heck, the world by storm. I will become rich and famous – an entrepreneurial guru. People will come to me for wisdom and advice and – grits. And I will not forget my humble beginnings nor the advice of my uncle Bill: make them thick enough to stand a spoon up in.

I once came upon a man as I was walking down an old forgotten road. He was walking, too.

He said, “Come with me and I will take you places you have never been.”

I said, “I have been a lot of places and I am tired of traveling.”

“Come, then, and I will show you things you have never seen.”

“I have seen so many things until I am almost tired of seeing.”

He said, “Well, what, then?”

I said, “Tell me something I have never heard. Something real and true.”

He said, “We must stop for that. Here, under this tree.”

We sat and then he said, “Son, it has been many years and many miles that has brought us to this particular place and time.”

I said, “Well, that’s true enough. Is that all?”

“Yes”

I was ready to go. I asked, “What’s down the end of this road?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“Is that where you’re going?”

“You mean nowhere?”

“No. I mean to the end of the road.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ll go with you that far, anyway.”

(Transcribed from notes recorded on March 18.)

I carry notebooks with me all the time. I have a small pocket-size Moleskine, a large Moleskine, a Notabilia and a large ledger. This is probably more notebooks than I should carry about, mainly because I’m always undecided over what to put in what notebook. I sometimes just sit and stare blankly at an empty page or copy stuff from one notebook to another and I generally spend more time just messing with the books than I do writing in them.

Now I’m starting to really be concerned about what I write. Times past, I would just jot down anything that popped into my head. Now I imagine people actually reading my notes (particularly my wife and kids) in the event of my death – an event I am becoming increasingly expectant of. I imagine my audience, then, as a body of curious mourners looking through my pitiful notes after my untimely death. I want them to find something promising and uplifting and that will reveal my inner-self to them in the best possible light. A tough chore. I probably should just stop writing stuff down altogether.

To make matters worse, I now have a blog. Stuff I put there is immediately accessible not only to them (my family) but to the whole online world. “We must consider our audience,” the experts say, but sometimes I feel safer and more comfortable imagining my only audience is me. “Why, then, write at all?” one might ask and I will have to ponder that for awhile and get back later on that.

Later -

I suppose the main reason I write is because I want to be a writer. Someone (Stephen King, I think) said, “A writer writes.” That makes perfect sense and is probably good enough reason, but the truth is that I want to connect with someone. I want someone to read something that I have written and say, “Yeah!” Another reason I write is it helps me “get stuff out.” Stuff such as now, March 18, 2008, as I sit here, the only customer in this Chinese restaurant at mid-afternoon on a cold, rainy day in Canton, OH and listen to the bubbling of an aquarium, the soft oriental music, the banter from the kitchen and feel my loneliness. Now, at my age, I realize there is nothing romantic about loneliness. No song or excellent journal entry or movie or book can ever make it desirable to me again. I have had my fill of it.

Sometimes loneliness can lead to despair- sometimes other things can lead there. Things such as finding out yesterday that my sister’s husband, Billy, had died after a long battle with cancer and the knowing that I have been more or less estranged from her and him and my brother and most of all my family for several years now for reasons too painful for me to write about now or probably forever and the fact that I am far from home and will probably not make it there for the funeral and that I would probably not go if I were home. And sometimes loneliness and despair can lead to depression and keep me there in its dark gloomy embrace until I break free, back to the light. And sometimes writing helps; helps get me back.

I write because I am a writer: because writing affirms that. “A writer writes.” It’s just that simple. And perhaps because my thoughts, sometimes feverishly, most times clumsily, scribbled down on paper, in whatever notebook I choose, may be all that I leave behind.

I think I will plant daffodils on my daughter’s grave. Have you ever seen them when they appear suddenly in the early Spring in a disused pasture, or along an old fence line, or on the side of a forgotten road? I like them best that way: in the wild, an unexpected treasure. I will plant a cluster of them at her head and at her feet and a few scattered randomly about as if dropped from heaven.

When I found out that Erin had been fatally injured in an automobile accident, her body only being kept alive by some machine so that her organs could be preserved for transplant, I was hundreds of miles away. There was nothing I could do but weep and pray. A man offered me a drink of whiskey but I refused. I wanted my grief to be pure and not dulled. I knew I had to get to the very bottom of it before I could ever begin to crawl back up again. That was almost 20 years ago. I am still crawling.

Yesterday, Valentines Day, I sent my wife three roses and asked her to place them on Erin’s grave and I thought about her and wept. I was, again, miles from home. The tears I cried were not bitter tears but were sweet tears of sorrow. God gave us tears so that we can cry out our sorrow from time to time lest it fill us up. We have to let out some of the sorrow to make room for something else. Maybe joy.

Erin was a sweet, gentle, loving soul. She was perhaps too delicate for this world. God took her, some say. I only know that she was here and is now gone and her passing left a hole in my heart. But I will not let that hole be always filled with sorrow. When it gets too full I will cry it out to make room for something else.

I will plant daffodils on my daughter’s grave and water them with my tears.