Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get a hamburger!

It’s getting close to 9pm. It’s a brisk 50f w/ a breeze. I’ve got my baggy Levis, Black Oakland Raiders jacket, over a bright red Fresno State sweatshirt, that’s hiding a Hufflepuff T-shirt. I’m wearing my knit beanie my mom made for me. It’s been a couple of days since I shaved. I look homeless.

So I’m standing on the edge of highway 285 smoking one of the pre-rolls I’ve purchased along the way. I’m waiting for a pause in the traffic. It’s not like I’m trying to dash across I-5. There’re stoplights in the distance, I just have to wait.

I like being in a state where weed is legal. C’mon Texas & Idaho, get it together!

Anyway, I’m standing there looking at my app and looking across the highway, but it isn’t The Burger Den. It’s Denny’s! Aha! It’s a fake burger place created during the pandemic so they could sell more food through DoorDash.

I make it across eventually with no issues and enter the restaurant. It’s about a 1/3 full. Mostly along the same wall. There isn’t anyone at the check in podium. Another couple is there sitting down in the lobby.

I see a stressed out 30s something woman dart in and out of the kitchen. She says just a minute as she heads out to the dining area.

I notice the couple are sharing a phone screen, so I look down at mine to reassure myself this is actually the right place. I don’t see any signs about a Burger Den. But it looks right on my screen.

After about 10 minutes she asks if I’m here for the door dash order. “Yes.”

“We don’t have strawberry ice cream for your shake. In fact we don’t have any ice cream!” She said with an exasperated expression. “How about New York Cheesecake?”

“Yes please!”

She disappears for several minutes then comes back to tell the couple they didn’t have seasoned fries. She offered to reimburse them or they could come back the next day.

When she comes back with my food, I asked how many people they were missing because they were obviously slammed.

She’s the assistant manager. The real manager left early and her in charge because, ‘The evenings are usually light.’ It’s Friday night! She has one chef and one server. She said she’s going to close it down soon. I told her she wasn’t getting paid enough.

It’s an example of something I want to write more about. Homelessness, low paying jobs, medical costs. Our country has serious problems.

Anyway I get back to my room, turn on the tv, put the cheesecake in the fridge, and enjoy my burger and onion rings.

It’s an old Rosanne episode. It’s in the middle of the one where she has to take a lie detector test. After a few questions she realizes they’re trying to get dirt on the gay employee! 90s plot lines! Am I right?

Then it switches to a young Galeki and a young (insert actress name here) having one of those conversations. Two young people have.

Him: I just want to spend time with you. I want to be your friend.

Her: But you want to do more than hang out.

Audience laughs as he stammers affirmatively

Her: So if I don’t then you won’t be my friend.

Him: No! I thought about this. If you want to just be friends that’s ok!

He starts to walk away and she pulls him in for a kiss.

Cut to Rosanne watching in horror. “Dan! What did you say to her?”

“Well I tried to be there for her and…”

I identified with the father trying to balance his family interactions but fails unintentionally. I identified with the boy who loves someone so much, that being a friend is sufficient. Even if there’s a longing for more.

I turned it off. There really aren’t any coincidences are there? It’s just staring right at us. But we have to accept it before we see it.

Good night!

Connections

Did you know when you touch something your skin doesn’t actually physically come in contact with the surface of a table say. The little electrons of the atoms of the molecules that make up your skin repel the little electrons of the molecules that make up the fibers of the wood of the table.

But. You don’t really “touch” the table. Little nerve fibers pass on bio-electro-chemical “signals” like a baton race. Here, pass it on. Then something something happens and you of your reality experiences the sensation of a smooth surface under your fingers.

And yet…

Anniversaries are important to me. It’s a PTSD thing. But it’s also a way for my brain to focus. It’s easier to remember details on anniversaries for me than on other days when I may be reminiscing about my past.

The universe is telling me reality is connected on a more fundamental level than I could ever conceive. I have no idea how wrong I really am with my pretentious guesses about the truth. I can accept that. That makes sense. Every human being is equally far away from humanly inconceivable truths. Accept that. Get a good seat. Watch it happen.

Tomorrow will become an anniversary of sorts for me. There are a few events that have happened in my life that I can remember distinctly because of the importance and intensity of the moment.

When I run across an anniversary of one of those moments it can be like touching an electric fence. I feel what I felt then, in a way. Subdued of course, but the intensity of it was forgotten until I was surprised to find it still there just waiting to be remembered.

I’m experiencing memories of last year because I actually kept a journal. Several journals. Wow. I really thought a year ago that any day now, the divorce will be final and I’ll get to live in an apartment instead of in a tent next to my daughter’s RV.

It’s been a ride let me tell you. I’ve got audio recordings going back to 2017 talking about the trouble I was in at work. I want to see my wedding videos! Remember what it was like to feel the words when I told my wife I loved her.

Tomorrow will establish an anniversary. I will be debt free tomorrow for the first time in about 40 years. If I allow myself to become ensnared in that foolishness again I’ll deserve whatever consequences I earn! Not me friend. I have seen the light.

Accounting Day? Accountability Day? Net Worth Declaration? The Truth Shall Set You Free day. Needs work.

But it will be a day to remember!

So What?

This is my third try at writing a paragraph and it isn’t going well. I can’t seem to get my thoughts in order. I sat down to write something. At first I was going to write about my day. I deliver for Amazon. I was going to write about what I saw and thought about. But it was so choppy I deleted it. Then I thought I’d write about the mind and soul. But I couldn’t figure out how to start or even what my point was going to be.

So here’s my third attempt. I’m writing about why I struggle with writing. Just writing this much has helped me see that if I want to write, I better have at least a topic in mind. But more than that, I need to actually want to write because I have something to say and not because I want to accomplish something.

Ok. Here’s the thing. I don’t have hope for the future. Either mine or the whole planet for that matter. This lack of hope has several causes. So I’m going to try and get them down before they elude me. Again.

First, my life has taken some crappy turns and left permanent scars. Everyone has pain and misfortune in their life. So I don’t claim to have had an especially hard life. There are billions of people who I’m sure would love to trade their problems for mine. But I can only report what I’ve seen and done. I’ve arrived at 60 with steamer trunks of baggage. I am not normal. I’m damaged. I am deeply cynical about life and what it’s for.

Secondly, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a soul. So I don’t believe that I am going to survive after I die. Whatever years are left to me, they number less than the ones I’ve lived already. I am declining. Mentally and physically. Yes I exercise and am on prescribed medications for what ails me. But everything we try to do to prolong our life is doomed to failure. As Jim Morrison said, “Nobody here gets out alive.”

Lastly, the world we live on and the culture we live in is failing. Just looking at the news we see political and social unrest. There’s climate change, war, disease, and a host of other problems we seem unable or unwilling to solve.

Now don’t think I just sit around dressed in black lamenting about the unfairness of it all. I enjoy being alive. I like watching how things evolve. I see the beauty in nature. I’m inspired by great music and great ideas. I love my family and what few friend(s) I have.

But fundamentally, it’s all going to end some day. All attempts at progress are futile. Even if thousands of years from now we’ve developed into a multi-planetary society and have cured all forms of cancer there is no hope for the future. Why?

Because the Universe, like everything else, had a beginning, has a present, and will have an end. We live in a special time where there is light. We can see the other stars and galaxies around us now. But someday, billions of years from now, the Universe will expand to the point that anyone alive on a planet won’t be able to see any other star. The night sky will be completely black. Someday in the far distant future the last star will collapse on itself and the light of the Universe will be extinguished.

So what? That’s hundreds of billions of years down the road! It’s the inevitability of it that gets me. Long before that, life will have been incinerated here on Earth. Our sun will in billions of years use up all of its hydrogen. The sun will expand engulfing Mercury and Venus and possibly the Earth too. Even if the Earth isn’t inside the sun it will be burnt to a cinder.

So what? That’s billions of years down the road! Life evolves. That includes humans. There weren’t humans a million years ago. There’s little reason to think there will be humans a million years from now. Our species will die out or become something new.

So what? That’s a million years down the road! If we’re lucky we might live to see 100 years of life. 100 laps around the sun. It’s very difficult for us to conceive of time scales in the millions or even thousands of years. But we know from archeology and geology that earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and other cataclysmic events have occurred in the past and will occur again in the future.

So what? Hey! I could be wrong! In fact, I am almost certainly wrong about many things. Perhaps this world is a snow globe for God(s). We’re here and He’s there watching us go about our lives. Or maybe we’re in a simulation? We might just be a very complicated Sims game and I’m just a program that thinks I’m alive in a real world.

Wow. I have had this idea rolling around in my head for awhile. I guess it wanted to come out and say hi. I really thought I was going to write about driving for Amazon in Texas. But my brain wouldn’t let me write about that until I had unloaded this apparently. I’m driving again tomorrow if the weather isn’t too bad. I’ll try to write about that next time.