Back In Austin, Computer Fixed

And now it's nearly 10 PM here at McDonald's.  Matt is sitting a few feet over to my right with his daschund, Rosie, on his lap.  He says, "If I hadn't had that car wreck 15 years ago and had all that brain damage, I'd be riding, too. I got balance problems."

Don't we all.

Last night Smokie was there at Lift Cafe when I rode up, him all smiles and high-fiving.  "Got her fixed," he said, meaning the netbook computer.  Virus banished to VirusHell and now...the blog can at long last be updated.

I was gone for a couple of weeks, there in Houston to relax and rest, recuperate.  Living on the street can be an exhausting enterprise, especially for an old man such as myself.  (I turn 65 this coming Friday, folks!)

The hardest thing is of a night, going back into the woods and the darkness, there to struggle through the mud of the path and the branches that seem to reach out to whip your face, through the tall grass with the droplets of wet to the space.

Camp.

And to the stash, where the tent lies beneath the blue tarp, hoping all is still there, that the blanket hasn't gotten too damp for comfort.

When there are mosquitoes, it's a race against time to get the little tent up.  The two fiberglass poles are contrary critters with well-developed minds of their own--and attitudes from hell.  They test a lifetime of carefully developed patience.  And the mosquitoes are olympic quality in their ability to penetrate my feeble shooing-away defenses.

In the end, with the tent assembled, I hop through the little door and quickly zip the netting shut.  Doesn't matter.  At least one or two always manage to precede me into the tent, so there they are, buzzing away with that high-pitched whine, letting me know that they're HUNGRY and nothing will do but to let them have their drop of blood so as to leave me in peace.  I bare my shoulders and avert my head.  Thus turns my world.

That's what's ahead of me tonight, so I'm sitting here at McDonald's in a world of denial.  Yes, I know I could go right now and do that fun stuff.  But I also know that I can put it off for awhile, that it will be waiting for me at whatever time I return.

I am twenty cents short of a coffee.  Since coffee is just 42 cents, you can deduce that I'm rolling in cash--right?  Smile.  Doesn't matter.  The twenty cents will emerge tomorrow at just the right time, and I will drink the three cups of coffee that will buy.

Having a functioning computer changes everything, of course.  I spent the past week or so thinking about what I would write in the blog once the computer arose from the grave.  Great and noble thoughts I thunk, but I'll be blessed if I can remember a single one of them.

I know that there are people I want to write about.  Allison comes to mind.  Maggie. John and Jamie, of course.

And did I write that William B. Clay was in the hospital in grave jeopardy of having his legs amputated at the knee?

Last I heard he was discharged from the hospital, legs intact, thirst unabated.  But haven't seen him since I got back.

I did run into Cleve.  He's the one who assured me that he didn't drink and didn't care to be around those who did.  Right on, I told him.  So when I returned to Austin there he was sitting in the bleachers all glassy-eyed with a can of some kind of gawd-awful beer in his hand.

Well.  Okay.  So I stayed the minimal amount of time for the sake of courtesy, then headed out.

And I must write about Snail who, last evening, was a flying about treetop level and reached out and touched my arm.  "This guy," he said, meaning me, "is the real deal.  He's already proved himself many times."  That was apropos of something, I'm sure, but can't recall just what.

The food truck didn't come Saturday, didn't come Sunday, and did come today but it came an hour early so when I got there it had already come and gone.  My stomach did one of those agonizing leaps from a very high place and came down smack dab in the middle of some middling hunger.

Hunger.  Yesterday I was so hungry I was faint.  The day before I'd only had two breakfast tacos--cold--courtesy of the Divine Mzzz Jamie, so I was having some serious blood-sugar issues. Nothing to do but hop on the bike and ride up to Veggie Heaven, where I was given a foam container of rice and veggies.

But I've gotten ahead of myself.  On the way I was somewhat irritated (translation:  super-pissed) at my Higher Power.  Like...where's the $?  Where's the food?  You're not holding up your end of the deal, Sweet Thang.

So at this corner I stop to catch my breath and this man is walking along and I (choke, gasp, sputter) ask him to help me out.  He gives me a buck.

At McDonald's I'm still eight cents short of a McDouble, so I ask this Latino bicycle guy.  Turns out he and the two others are in some kind of a race, but he hunts around in his bag and comes up with three energy bars--snacks.  Mmmmm.

And this big ole farm-boy looking type hunts around for eight cents and comes up with a handful of change which turns out to be more than a buck.

So I eat.  And say my contritions to the Dancer (my HP).  Sorry, Babe, I mutter.

I was jist hungry.

Po' thang, she whispers, and dances away.  A bit of Tahitian Hula thrown in there, just to keep me on my toes.

Then I met "Righteous Rebecca" there at the Scientology Building there on the Drag.  She had one kinda beat up orchid which she was trying to sell, and she came over and introduced herself to me.  Blonde, missing some teeth topside, a bit on the heavy side.  That's the appearance thingie.  But the heart simple and trusting and somehow bruised and battered but still beating bravely away.

They took away my food stamps, she said.  Sixty years old and they took away my food stamps.

So there she is trying to sell some wilted orchids with the rain let up now.  A couple of college kids are standing there by the coffee shop smoking, and I try to buy a cigarette.  The girl walks back inside and brings back two.

Somehow we start talking the tower over there where Charles Whitman in 1966 lost it and climbed up there and started shooting people.

A street person, fairly shabby, perks up his head. "I was there!" he said.  "Right here on Guadalupe.  I was fourteen years old and checking out all this free love shit I'd heard about and blam this woman right in front a me got shot and I grabbed her and dragged her into a doorway."

All of which just goes to prove my point: that all lives are works of art.  It's just that they've not been properly edited.

I took some horrific pictures of myself today using this little webcam feature my new operating system--Obuntu--comes with.

Should try to upload one of them.

You've been warned, Pilgrim.

Peace, love, and a cornucopia of fooooood.

E.