Nuclear Polio Vaccination

I love this place. I love Oklahoma. I really do. Okies really are the salt of the earth. I have encountered nothing but loving people here.
I work with some really awesome people. I was lucky enough to have some really awesome neighbors and friends. My job at Youth Services has been an incredible experience.

But its time to go. I have a feeling another ice storm is coming. tis October and its already getting pretty cold. I either have to commit for the winter, or leave.

Commitment means buying an actual bed, possibly even a car, lots of winter gear, a television, record player, things one buys when they settle down.

I just can’t do it here unfortunately. Too many ghosts, and I just can’t
handle another winter here. Mentally I just don’t have it in me.

But its been such a great time and knowing that my time here is limited gives me back the freshness I had when I first got here. There is the desire to soak every moment up.

I’ve gotten to see a couple of Thunder games, spent some time in Norman, and OKC….
its been such a myriad of emotions….

having seen a friend in SF for the first time in a year and a half, she wanted to know what had changed me so much….she said I seemed much more solid……so what happened?????

Life……pregnancy scares, domestic violence, busting my ass day and night to get stuff taken care of…..a couple of books later, a couple of tours later, wandering the streets of Portland, trying to find my way back home……..

there is this saying among blues musicians, a term for paying your dues called “getting some mud on you”

I really know what the blues is like now……..I know firsthand how delicious the combination of country music and stake is.

I’ve seen some “hard hard places” like in Joni Mitchell’s “Help ME.”

Its been great. Living life…..I knew there was a reason to move here, and no matter hwo hard it got for me I stuck it out here until the same voice that told me to move here, was telling me to leave.

I’d been working waaaaay too much to compensate for my home life. Once me and the first old lady split, the job was the only thing keeping me here was my job.

When I got back from Toronto this July, I got really depressed and it was tough to even be home. I worked all night, slept all day and then wrote all night….i was very productive, but it was tough being at home….
coming back to my sleeping bag and beat up computer…..

So it is time to switch gears.
Move to Oregon, start a country band, do some Tai Chi, record a comedy album…….time to move on.

A couple of midwest gigs left, and a few more things to do before I go……….it’s been a really good trip… and if the day comes and its time to come back……well I’m okay with that too.

My favorite version of a Merle Haggard tune. Feels very appropriate for me right now.

Funny how you can look back at an event or a time period and realize just how irrational you were.
When you are in the midst of chaos, its hard to think rationally.

After I got off the phone with her, I knew something had to change but what?

I’d been so entrenched in shit that it never occurred that I’d have to make a fundamental change in order to not fall back in the same patterns.

Right now I’m understanding just how crazy the past three years have been for me.

Coast to Coast in blur, the nomadic negro traveling for the sake of………

But here I was contemplating the break up of another union with another domineering, know it all, manipulative, castrating female.

The definition of a castrating female:

A woman who uses her sexuality to seduce a man’s mind and sway his decisions on matters.

This is the kind of woman who uses sex against a man in hopes of getting her way.

A woman who is so domineering in her ways (i.e. control freak) that she purposely dates men with no backbones, in order to maintain a sense of control. Eventually she grows tired of this kind of guy, dumps him for a man with a stronger sense of self worth, but finds him to be too hard to control and then dumps him for another man with no backbone.

The problem is that once a man is no longer interested in sex with that particular woman she no longer has that power. They can only play the crying, vulnerable and weak card for so long before that loses its momentum.

Having dated a few of these gals over the years you’d think I could recognize it when I run across it. For the most part I can, but occasionally the right combination of brains and beauty will knock me on my heels.

Am I completely innocent? Hell no. I’ve done some dirt, some serious dirt. I’ve initiated breaks, told untruths, and been a complete heartless bastard in some cases.

So its no surprise that I’d fall for a narcissistic, crafty, and beautiful woman with a streak of viciousness beneath a sweet demeanor.

I’d often remarked that meeting her was like taking a hit of LSD. My senses were super heightened. I felt so open and intuitive. I felt so sensitive and loving and happy, and sad all at the time.

I’d met the other half of me. I felt like we’d really picked up where the other left off, gap filling if you will. She was perfect for me. So what was wrong?

SHe had that same cold blooded killer instinct within her, and she had her own priorities.

It took me a while to fully digest this. I spent many nights drinking whiskey and listening to country music, lamenting my losses and trying to find a way to push ahead and not feel sorry for myself.

But it wasn’t until I’d gotten off the phone the other night with her that it really made sense.

I was getting what I deserved.

I could still bitch about everything that happened with her, but why? This was exactly what I needed to happen to me.

Meeting her was indeed a life changing psychedelic trip–like having a mirror held in front of my face. I saw everything that I was and had been. All the ugly parts of myself were exposed in seeing how she was behaving. I even found myself saying some of the things other gals had said to me. Things such as,

“Not lying isn’t the same as telling the truth.”
etc. etc……

I’m forced to consider every interaction I’d had with the opposite sex and every interacation I will have in the future. I’ll need a long break from women for while, understanding that it might be awhile before I get laid again. I’m okay with that. Been due for a dry spell for quite some time…..now is just as good as a time as any.

So where am I now??? Well getting ready to get the fuck out of the midwest. The cold is coming, and that wind is blowing something nasty in December down here.

I don’t think I can handle another winter here, this was not a part of the “PLAN” MAN!!!!

I’ll be spending the next six weeks job hunting in the Northwest. But I could easily snowbird it in Texas or California………to be continued

It took me until I was about six years old before I realized that getting off of work didn’t involve my mother climbing outside her office window and carefully scaling down the building, one floor at a time.

When I was eleven, my cousin was eating a cream filled ho-ho when he turned to me with cream on his lips and said, “Man it looks like I been eating pussy.”
And I couldn’t help but think…….eating pussy..why would you eat the pussy? Wouldn’t you want to save some for later???

But the worst gaffe was when I was hanging out with some kids after school in fourth grade. We were on the steps to my apartment looking at Playboy magazine. I think it was the first time I’d seen a nudie magazine. I was so blown away that I said, ” Wow If this is what Playboy is, I can’t wait to see what Playgirl looks like.”

If my life were a movie, the record would have skipped. The other kids looked at me in stupified awe.

“Dude you realize that Playgirl is for women? Its nothing but naked dudes in that magazine.”
UGH.

It never occcured to me that women would want to look at a magazine full of naked men.

I was a weird kid.

Just got a new short story published on Inverspace.com

by the man who who produced James, Devo, anything worth listening to by U2, the Talking Heads’ best albums, and collaborated on David Bowie’s best work of the 70’s.

http://www.longnow.org/views/essays/articles/BrianEnoLongNow.php