Cafe Hitch-hike

2022-04-26

It was one of those days

It was one of those one thing after another kind of days. I guess some of our crew were ready to take pitchforks and torches to the building our Grand Pubahs to demand better-- everything. Wages. Replacements for people who ran away or retired. Respect. Things like that. It got contentious at a division meeting last week and some of the level-headed people had to talk some people down and the sargeant-at-arms had to enforce order.

I had a scheduled day off last Friday. I usually attend a separate departmental meeting and I got to dodge a project discussion (it's another one of these projects of the damned and thankfully I have nothing to do with it). I heard I missed a brawl that involved someone who attacked me in the past, so now someone else got to feel their wrath. This person has been feeling overwhelmed like the rest of us, but they talked to me about wrongs way-past that I guess they didn't or couldn't let go.

A lot of people here are also on edge because our governmental overlords are passing some absolute ridiculousness. I wouldn't be surprised if we broke off from the rest of the US in the near future (or some batshit-head proposes it and it catches influence and attention). I wonder if those of us who disagree will eventually be forcibly walked to the state line and leave our possessions behind. It seems that anything is possible here.


In funny news, I got in touch with my former alma mater because they had a program that the grand pubahs want to try out in my building. I introduced myself as alumni and also a former employee in their infamous undergraduate quad (a study/ learning space for mostly first and second year college students). The Quad had the atmosphere of a pool hall and pizzeria, and included some computer labs and study tables. A lot of homeless shelters were nearby, so their residents hung out in our building to stay warm in the winter and stay cool in the summer when the shelter was closed. The place was lively to say the least.

The people from The Quad got in touch with me right away to set up a time to virtually meet. I smiled inside, it was an edgy place but there was also a fellowship. People who went to school or worked there chose to, so that gave us a certain cred. It meant you had no fear (or managed it well). I laughed a little as I thought of it and fondly remembered when a public visitor tried stealing a police bike out of the building; the audacity cracked me up. I don't so fondly remember the time I loaned a guy scissors, and he was handcuffed and being led out of the building an hour later because he used them to attempt an assault on a female (I'm not kidding and it was upsetting). That place was a very mixed blessing.


Rafa and I ran away to Marathon in the Florida Keys where we both needed days of rum at the poolside and views of the ocean and its amazing stars. Since the resort allowed dogs, Marley was allowed to attend and loved it. She got to meet lots of people and dogs alike. She's even smiling in many pictures. I felt a little discouraged at first because it was going to be windy (and it was), but it was a lot less of an issue than I thought.

On the way back, we stopped at a bar on stilts. We sat next to a big guy who earned multiple Purple Hearts as a Marine and his wife, and we had too many laughs. Mr. Strickland definitely wrote a chapter on how to be a legitimate badass with his career as a policeman and federal agent. He just so happen to know some people I knew in Edgewhere (a rural place where I used to work), so I better send Mr. S. a text.

Meanwhile, I've been having occasional nightmares with ghosts. I ask them nicely to leave and ponder them a little during the day. These ghosts are things I both tried to drown and allowed to get airtime with the hopes they'll oxidize and flake away like dust, but the result is the same. I thought I did all I could with those fuckers but I guess I was wrong. I'm sure it's something I can drone on about with my mentor who'll probably only tell me certain things fade with time and I can't force them but only co-habit with them until I get it right and then it flakes away. I've tried everything to banish those fuckers. I also invoke the Ranier Maria Rilke poem that has helped me like scripture:


“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

I guess the ghosts want to mess with me a bit more before I reach a certain point and they can finally be laid to rest, which often feels like their own damn time. Hooray.

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