The ice cream truck turns left, then right

Were it not for the presence of the unwashed and the half-educated, the formless, queer and incomplete, the unreasonable and absurd, the infinite shapes of the delightful human tadpole, the horizon would not wear so wide a grin."

- Frank Moore Colby, "Imaginary Obligations"

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Today is the perfect day, an 80-degree June wonder, a great afternoon to scribble out the American Dream, brittle and dry after so many years in a senseless war, who comes out to chase the ice cream man, but finds the truck turning right instead of left. It leaves this lonely writer alone to sit and sun and dream of Rocket Pops.

Here in the grass of Ella Sharp Park, the few remaining honeybees in existence buzz in vain for nourishment. Across the softball field, rocket hobbyists and radio-controlled plane operators engage in all-out war - the plane is zooming, whipping up a terrible frenzy in the tranquil bee population. If the rocket guys aren't careful, they could blow that plane out of the sky. Things might come to blows.

A whoosh, and a puff, and a trail of smoke follows the exploded rocket down to the earth. Across the street, families are putt-putting, and downtown is full of the constant roar of motorcycle men and women, leather-clad even in the heat.

I stood at the corner of Blackstone and Michigan Ave. for twenty minutes as the parade of beards and noise and chrome thundered by.

"...a local attorney drove his car across the sidewalk and over the ledge of my entranceway, where he leaned on his horn and tried to knock down the door with his bumper. A visiting poet hurled a garbage can under the wheels of a pssing bus, causing a noise like a bad accident. My upstairs neighbor said it sounded like a Volkswagen being crushed. 'It jolted me right out of bed," he said. "But when I looked out the window all I could see was the bus. I thought the car must have hit it head on and gone underneath. There was an awful dragging sound. I thought people were mashed down there in the wreckage.'"

...and so it goes in Dr. Thompson's amazingly funny "Hell's Angels," just like I'm sure it happens all over this great country...at this exact hour...on a perfect June day.

If only we could engage in our world as often as Mr. Bush engages in the world, we might be a sunnier people.

Like the families that bring their lawn chairs and coolers and watch their daughters battle on the soccer field just across the way.

Soon the smell of cut grass will ride this cool breeze over to me, and the bi-plane circling overhead will land somewhere for lunch. If only that goddamn ice cream truck would stop this way...

...blast! He again avoids me, turning into my own damn apartment complex instead of passing by the sun-drunk field where I sit. He won't get away with this. It's times like this I wish I had a metal Frisbee that I could throw and shatter his teeth like glass.

It didn't have to be this way, Mr. Ice Cream. It would've been the easiest $1.75 you ever made in your life.

It's a marshmallow world in the winter

These pics are mostly for the folks who aren't in Michigan any more.

I know Oklahoma got some winter weather here lately, and maybe some of this reached south. But winter has finally arrived in Michigan it seems, even if it only comes in spurts and sputters.

The rain began to freeze last night, putting a glaze over everything. Even the grass is slippery, and breaks like glass when you walk on it.

Power is out all over the place around these parts. The morning drive wasn't so bad, but on the ride home I saw lots of downed tree branches. It was gorgeous.





The pictures are just from around the apartment complex, but I thought of going down the street - the really old part of town - to catch the action. Entire streets were nothing but white and ice and quiet. Everyone stayed in today, except us at the credit union, because of Dr. King's day - and because of the weather.





These are the kind of storms I remember as a kid: dragging my sled around the neighborhood, picking twigs off the crabapple trees and sucking on the ice that coated them. Big snow piles in the parking lot you could either slide down or make a fortress for you and your friends.

Winter was childhood, especially in Michigan, although any season was ripe enough to go outside and play.





The trees are bent because of the weight of the ice. The lucky ones are still standing. Don was watching the news last night, with reports of car ports crashing down on the vehicles underneath because of the snow and ice.

"You should move your car," he told me.

I laughed. This is Michigan. It might as well be Ontario, or Minnesota. We know what winter is, and we build things to withstand the extra weight. Nature forgets, though.






I though I was forgetting, too, until I woke up this morning with a tell-tale tickle in the back of my throat.

Winter is the time to get a cold. Those spring and summer colds are just a kick in the crotch. You're not supposed to get sick when the sun is shining and warm. Winter is the proper season, because everyone's miserable, and no one feels sorry for you.

"Yeah, that's going around," they tell you. No, "Aw shucks," or "Boy, I hate being sick this time of year." No, those condolences are saved when birds chirp.

This time of year, you're on your own.

It's the season of hot soup and warm cider and the never-ending drone of the heater, so being sick only makes sense. Who wants to go out in this mess, anyway?

Well, except maybe to grab a few pretty pictures. Then it's okay.

The fall of Fall

We've skipped right to winter, and it's only the second day of November. The weather report this morning is calling for snow, and I wonder why we bother with autumn in the first place.

Cold brings a project-oriented mindset, since you're mostly stuck inside and unable to take walks in the park - unless you're insane, in which case, have at it.

My project has been selling my knick-nacks on eBay - a site whose popularity has dwindled, judging by the bid counts on the items I want to sell. Who knew, five years ago, that the Simpsons collectible action figures would be a bad investment? Who knew that a tin Spider-Man lunchbox would fail to impress even the smallest niche of hobbyists? eBay is a good stopping place if you're looking to find a bargain on a CD or DVD: most go for only a few bucks, with shipping, which beats even the discount used movies I pick up from Blockbuster.

The project is a result of the doldrums, true, but also of the financial class Suzanne and I are taking with guru Dave Ramsey - a smart guy from Tennessee with an accent and little patience with debt. I'm weary of the get-rich-quick classes that so many around here are taking these days (probably because of the piss-poor job market and economy), so much so that I'll ignore polite offers. And this one I was skeptical of, too, but I'm glad Suzanne invited me. Ramsey is a crock-pot, not a microwave, in his philosophy, in that getting out of debt and building wealth take time. One of his recommendations is to sell the crap you don't need.

So selling the crap I don't need, or that's taking up too much space, or that I haven't seen in years. Except this opens up a whole world I'm not familiar with, what with all the bubble wrap and packaging tape and feedback points.

The cold also means dark, and while the sun shines in the morning - as it should - it disappears right about the time I wake up from a nap. And that's horse-pucky. My winter blahs don't need to start any earlier than they have to.

The blahs help, though, when watching my new favorite show - "The Office" - and "My Name is Earl" when I can catch it. I hear that iTunes saved the show, which I don't doubt, but I think it's humor and wit will see it through.

No more baseball games with Cowboy and Keith, sadly, but I may still have some travel left in my bones. And when I don't, I have another Office - Veach's bar - to look forward to with Mel, Jenny, Don and the crew. It's usually too loud to conversate, but never too loud to play drunken card games.

Winters are more bearable when you're buzzed, but my new budgeting superpowers make buzzed harder and harder to achieve.

What I do hope to achieve is a haircut of some sort, some financial peace, and a steady income from online auctions.

And maybe a sense of accomplishment, when crypto-Nazis like Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum burn in their own hellfire and brimstone. But with the unreliable voting machines - like the ones Randi and I saw in "Man of the Year" - it's hard to say who has the power anymore.