Eastward-ish - Into the Sunset: Tempe, AZ

Many demolitions are actually renovations. - Rumi


There are no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated places. - Wendell Berry


There's what's right and there's what's right and never the twain shall meet. - Raising Arizona 

O, what's left of the flag for me?

My time back in the Valley of the Sun has reminded me of a few things. The first thing I'm re-reminded of is how nice it is to see old friends. I was able to cross paths with Kenny, who let me sleep on his floor in spite of the trauma it visited upon his cats, Koufax and Drysdale, and Scott McNulty, who let me crash on his couch for night.  I was also able to see Dan and Julie, Alan and Katherine, Colleen and Donald and John and Reese along with other regulars, from the now defunct (May it Rest In Peace!) Horse and Hound -- the bar that was my home away from home for most of the time that Arizona was the place I hung my hat.


I was also reminded of the impetus that made me leave here in December 2009-- albeit, I will admit, with some dragging of the feet. And I can best describe my reasons by highlighting the list of offenses committed on me by this loathsome, arid, devil's asshole (think Dante's Inferno, the lowest level):

1. My first night here, I puked blood. 
2. At one point, my feet and lower legs swelled to three times their normal size. (Think of a fucked up Popeye.)
3. I experienced the Arizona version of Montezuma's Revenge.
4. I was in a perpetual state of dehydration no matter how much water I drank.
5. Being here caused me to spend more than I should have.

Now, it could be argued that I puked blood because I ingested far too much beer and not enough food. Though how that ever made a difference, I haven't a clue. I will admit that, upon returning here, it occurred to me just HOW MUCH time I spent at the bar, or drinking. I recalled the summer I perfected my margarita recipe...  well, I sort of remember. Really, with that much tequila and Triple Sec, who the fuck remembers anything? I'm lucky I wasn't arrested, naked from the waist down,  in the middle of the ASU main campus, pissing on the administration 

building.

My visit wasn't all bad. In fact, it wasn't even mostly bad. I was also able to ride the light rail downtown and meet a dear friend, Michele L, for coffee. My eventually-to-be-ex-wife and I became friends with her and her studious husband, Richard, when Michele worked with Melissa at Child's Play Theatre in Tempe. Michele and I got along almost instantly, bonding over the Arts, literature, and penchant for being a bit long of jaw. Richard and I became friends because, like his wife, he's very smart. He also has a preternatural ability to win at the horses -- a skill that ... probably because I would have used it for evil rather than good... I haven't really acquired. (Not that it ever stopped me.) 

The Phoenix-Tempe-Mesa metroplex has a lot wrong with it, but the light rail isn't one of them. Clean and efficient, it took all of 36 minutes to get from Tempe to Central and Roosevelt in downtown Phoenix. If you're familiar with driving in the metroplex or with the I-10, you will know that's an amazing time. If you're not, take my word for it.

I left Tempe yesterday and spent last night -- somewhat at the last minute -- at my friend McNulty's closer to downtown. I have less of a connection, truth be told, to actual downtown Phoenix. I spent most of my time here on the East End. I worked at ASU's main campus. I drank at the Horse and Hound. We shopped and ate out in the East End. I went downtown once on the light rail, maybe twice, right after they unveiled it -- which was always delayed between construction delays and the protests of those short-sighted people who refuse to see the present and future importance of a working public transit system. 

I suspect that many of them have never had to rely on public transit, would not be caught dead on public transit, and (among all the men and maybe some of the women) drive gas guzzling cars because they know their penises are too small.

Though while it's been good seeing friends, I feel like I'm looking at Arizona with new eyes and seeing a host of old problems and issues that I recognized when I was here before. A 6 year old undocumented Mexican being arrested by a Maricopa County Sheriff who is more of a criminal himself. A governor who, but for scaring rich white people in Scottsdale, would probably have to go back to being a hairdresser. 

Or a Republican Vice-Presidential candidate.

I thought about living here before, and how angry I was. All the time. I don't know if it was the sun... and believe me, I do think the sun fries people's brains out here. How else do you explain the Minute Men at the border? Or the fact that Arizona insists on trying to support a hockey team?

Your guess is as good as mine, Dear Reader. Lawdy, Lawdy.

Be warned, though. Don't confuse righteous indignation with random anger. I may not have much of the latter. But as time goes on, I have more and more of the former. And I don't intend to misdirect my righteous indignation. Or sacrifice my sense of peace in the process.

An Ohio Valley Yankee in Virginia, Part 5: Don't Need a Weatherman

"A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves." -- Marcel Proust 


"Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get." - Mark Twain


"Even a paranoid can have enemies." - Henry Kissinger


As promised, the weather update.

You might recall, Dear Dedicated Readers, that I once posited that the weather is chasing me around the the Eastern half of the United States. Specific examples:

1. The day I left Mount Carroll, it was to get ahead of a snow storm. By the time I left Chicago, it was snowing there.
2. The day I left Cincinnati, it rained.
3. The day I left Lexington, it was cold and the wind was strong enough to carry away Dorothy (And her little DOG, too!)
4. The day I left Willow Drive, it rained.
5. The day I left Ashland, it started snowing. (Yes, it stopped. But the weather was there... taunting me.)

But, to be fair, even I was skeptical. Yes. If there's one thing I've learned it's that you never trust a single event to explain the larger machinations of the universe.

And you don't trust the second.

Or the third.

Or the fourth.

Or EVEN the fifth.

But the sixth time that a similar weather pattern happens to show up within a day of my departure?

Well, then, Dear Friends and Valued Readers, I have no choice but to sit up and take notice.

It's snowing. I realize it's February and that snow isn't exactly completely UNHEARD of... even here on the  Virginia coast. But I'd also like to point out that the winter has had a late start. I'd also like to point out that even when I was down by the Ocean View Shopping Center spending a few more hours with my daughter, even she remarked how odd it was that the grass was still green.

So there.

The storm began and a loud clap of thunder, then a heavy rain that turned into snowy rain. The thunder cloud must have been right over head because it shook the room. And I'm on the first floor of a two floor building. 

I'm off to Washington D.C. tomorrow morning, back on the tried and true Greyhound Bus. My bus leaves at 8:16 in the morning. Yes. Had I thought it out better, I might have given myself some time to sleep in, since check out isn't until 11. My original thought was that I'd get up, check out, and walk across the street to the very conveniently placed Hampton Road Transit Bus Stop

Not the bus stop. Actually, I think this is a new sign, even. 

But when I went to the fairly easy to use HRT website, I found there was NO BUS SERVICE this far out on W. Ocean View Avenue on Sundays. 

That's right.

No bus service. This is one more thing to go down on my List of Things I Hate About Norfolk.

Ok. So I don't have a list. Not an official one. But I have stated, I think quite clearly, that the only reason I would ever come here is to visit my daughter, Stella.

She's older than this now... or a really short 17 year old. And I still miss that jacket sometimes.

No bus service means that I have to spring for a cab early in the AM to get to the bus on time. So, on top of how USER UNFRIENDLY this town is -- unless you have a car, or are rich, or are in the military -- I have to include that visiting here has cost me more money than I planned and that as a result of that my stay is far shorter than I wanted it to be. So thanks, ugly, gray, unfriendly, illogical, sterile, and ignorant (all proof that the DOD clearly had a hand in city planning) Norfolk. Thanks for picking my pocket, shortening my stay, and generally making it more difficult to get around a city on an isolated peninsula that requires two underwater tunnels just to get to it.

(I haven't mentioned how ILLOGICAL it is here? Well, allow me to illuminate. The cheap ass motel I'm currently sitting in as I type this post is on W Ocean View Avenue. But when you're on the street, the view of the ocean is BLOCKED by houses, apartments, and condos... except at Ocean View Park. And there's nothing there except a random structure meant to look like a large Japanese shrine. According to Stella, people sometimes rent it for weddings. She thinks it's stupid to spend so much money on such a boring place to get married.

Ye Gods, I love that daughter of mine.)

[If you like what you read here, you can help by:

1. Passing the link around.
2. Graciously donating to the cause using the button on the right hand side of the screen, or by going to paypal.com and donating to mickp@gmx.com.
3. Contact Catherine Sellers at Greyhound, 415-331-6049. Tell them you are asking about a sponsorship when the operator picks up. I write about them enough. They should be helping me help them. Right??

Thanks for reading.]

Baboon in the Bluegrass, Part 4: Joyce

I could tell she's lived in the area nearly all of her life by two things: by the friendly way she greeted when I stepped on the 20-30 seat bus that passes for public transportation in Morehead. The university has been using similar short buses for years to transport students back and forth from the outlying parking lots. To ride the MorTran locally costs $1. (Passes available.) What's really interesting, however, is that the bus offers service to  both Lexington AND Ashland... a detail I wish I had known before I asked George to drive into Lexington to pick me up in front of the Starbucks. (I should point out that I offered to ride the bus to Ashland and save him the trip, but he would have none of it.)


The other way I could tell that Joyce has lived here a long time is from the gravelly Appalachian accent she spoke with. (People who are either ignorant or dismissive of accents tend to confuse the Appalachian growl with   the Southern draw. They are not the same.The Southern draw has elongated vows, soft consonants, and reminds the listener of molasses pouring on a cool autumn morning. The Appalachian growl is harsh, sometimes difficult to understands, and is, to the untrained and uncivilized ear more akin to riding a rough back road  in the back of truck with no shocks or power steering.)


She asked where I was going, and I told her I needed to head back to campus, or somewhere near it. What took me out to the library was a car, owned by an old friend I hadn't seen in many years. When I met Joy, she had been a college Freshman. I was a graduate student. She had these big blue eyes, a half sarcastic smile like she was silently judging everyone and everything around her (including me), and a well informed home schooled brain. Not home schooled because her parents were religious freaks or because she was a freak; they were just that smart and so was their kid. Also, Kentucky public schools -- at least in the eastern part of the state -- aren't known for the quality students they pump out.


Joy was one of those girls that left me confused, but it wasn't her fault. Girls in general have always confused me. (And no, I don't feel any wiser after two marriages. I just feel more stupid.)  Joy confused me because there was something about the sight of her that made my heart stop. Literally. It's an odd sensation, and one I have felt rarely; though I've been told the fact that I feel it at all, let alone more than once, is a gift.  It was confusing because I knew enough to know what it didn't mean, but not what it did.

And then it got kind of nuts. But that's another story for another day.

Seeing her again was good. Really good. Seeing her made my heart stop, ever so briefly. And for the same reasons as before... not because it was anything, but because it was something... even if it was just a flash and then it was gone. We talked briefly that day but she had to work; so I rode up to the library with her and when it was time for her to work, I left, intending to walk back to town.

Which was when I noticed the bus driving down the street. It stopped right in front of me and I stepped right in.

That there is something in Morehead resembling public transportation -- and that is not, I might add ... at least as far as I know... associated with the University -- intrigued me. So I told her I was a former student and that I was visiting. She asked when I graduated, and I told her. Then I asked her how long the MorTran had been in existence.

She told me she wasn't sure. "I've only been driving with them for a year." But, she added, she thought it had been around for three or four years.

Joyce -- she eventually told me her name was Joyce -- is one of those people you run into a lot in Eastern Kentucky; and I mean that as a compliment. She's trying to get by in the world as honest as simply as she can. For all the bad press PR Eastern Kentucky gets -- from the "This is California not Kentucky" crack in Clueless to every single stereotype on record... some of them encouraged by Kentuckians who would rather be thought of as a stereotype, and some of them encouraged by well meaning outsiders who make tragic documentaries, win awards and then leave, changing nothing -- I have to admit that some of the best, kindest, most honest people I've ever met have been from Kentucky. So there.

I prefer the PETA Alica.

Batgirl wasn't bad either (Geek Flag flying)

And here's some of what I mean by that. I asked Joyce what she did before she drove the MorTran and she said she used to work at Wal-Mart. She worked at the OLD Wal-Mart (the one I knew was here, that moved in when I was doing my undergrad work in the early 1990's and effectively destroyed the local-based economy) as well as the NEW hyper Wal-Mart that they widened the road for. She worked for them for 14 years.

Until.

She was working in the dairy department, she told me, when she hurt her back. In response, they made a greeter.... you know, those geriatrics who wave like automatons when customers walk in.  I asked if they offered her any kind of Workman's Compensation. She said no, they didn't. Making her a greeter was Wal-Mart's version of Workman's Comp. Eventually, she said, they just pushed her out.

I know some about the way Wal-Mart works... one, because I pay attention, and two, I worked for them -- briefly -- back in the mid-90's. Wal-Mart is anti-union, anti-worker, and, as far as I can tell, anti-humanity. But they are FOR PROFIT, so I shouldn't expect anything else, I guess.

WATCH THIS MOVIE

I mentioned the wonderful three day orientation -- the first day and a half which consists of watching movies about how unions are bad and how Sam Walton is God.

Joyce laughed. "I remember that. But my ex-husband worked for GM; so I know unions aren't ALL bad."

[I need to extend my thanks to George and Laura Eklund, along with Waylon, Tommy, and Fiona, for their kind hospitality at Willow Drive.

If you like what you read here, you can help by:

1. Passing the link around.
2. Graciously donating to the cause using the button on the right hand side of the screen;
3. Contact Catherine Sellers at Greyhound, 415-331-6049. Tell them you are asking about a sponsorship when the operator picks up. I write about them enough. They should be helping me help them. Right??

Thanks for reading.]