Bomb City

Cadillac Ranch: photo by Tooley

We moved from Deer Park, a suburb of Houston, to Amarillo, Texas on my 5th birthday. I got accepted to a Southern Baptist school, which I attended from the ages of 4 to 10. It wasn't until I was a decent stride past 40 and on a Netflix documentary binge, that I realized that school was segregated. It's so glaringly obvious now, but in my defense, I was barely more than a toddler and in no way in charge of paperwork or driving. Just being white wasn't enough to get you a pass in that area though; if you aren't also a conservative, fire-and-brimstone, fundamentalist Christian, they don't want your kind ‘round them parts. “You're going straight to hell, woman, so just go on an’ git.” 

I'd been accused by The Church that ran The School of being possessed by demons at the age of seven, and by the seventh grade, I'd been sufficiently exiled for what I believe they referred to as “general heathenry.” They even tried an exorcism on me that clearly didn’t stick. I was an unrepentant jezebel for wearing a skirt that showed my knees. I asked too many questions, and questions are considered “back talk.” But if you’re supposed to go to hell for not reading the Bible, what happened to all the people who died before Gutenberg invented the printing press? Nobody got a distribution loophole? What if somebody was never taught how to read? Are they still gonna go to hell if the copy they got isn’t in their language? I don’t understand Latin yet. Who did Jesus put in charge of translations? “Don't you go thinkin’ too much, lil’ lady. Ladies is fer cookin’, breedin’, and if you keep talkin’, it's gonna be hittin’.”

Religion isn't the hill I'm firing shots from today though, but it's right across the valley from Amarillo never much cared for folks mixin’, and they still don't. You can't have that kind of ingrained racism without a heaping helping of classism baked in to boot - that's how the goddamn system was built.

---

I got one of my first concussions in middle school. I was walking through the park by Amarillo College with a friend of mine, Angie. A girl we went to school with lived up the block and was having a birthday party with about 14 friends. I don't remember why they all came at us… not only was I not yet an avid shit-talker (I didn't even know how to cuss yet - I’d only been in public school for 2 years), I certainly wouldn't have started anything with that many people. Especially since my friend Angie saw them coming and immediately hid behind the nearest tree, which, Fuck You, Angie. I hope you’re blind in one eye and walk with a weird limp now. Next thing I knew, there were 3 people on top of me, a circle of more people surrounding them, the girl we knew was screaming inches from my face, and my head was getting bounced off the sidewalk like a goddamn basketball. I don't remember how I got out of that one, but I bet it was loud.

The part I DO remember is getting grounded for two weeks for not defending myself once mom found out I got jumped. She'd paid good money to send me to Tim Joe's Judo school so this kinda shit wouldn't happen! Which, by the way, is where I got another middle-school-era concussion. There was never anyone my size to spar with - I was the only girl - so I was always getting tossed around by dudes bigger than me, learning how to leverage their own force against them. Until that fat fuck orange belt dude took my knee out, threw me completely off the mats and head-first into the concrete. My neck *still* hurts from that shit, but what I learned from Tim Joe is engrained so deeply it benefits me to this day. Sooo, thanks after all, mom.

About the same time mom showed up to pick me up and ground me, a shit-brown Pinto with the doors barely still hanging on pulled up, and punk rock kids started pouring out like it was a clown-car. Mighta been Jeremy driving since he was smart enough to hot-wire a car from the time he was a toddler, even if he did huff freon in the shed behind his mom's house. I think Henry was there with a couple of the Joshes, maybe Willie, J-Ball, and at least one of the two Deneke brothers. Every single one of them was a friend of mine, and they asked me what was wrong as soon as they saw me. I nutshelled the assault and pointed up the block where the assholes were still wandering up the middle of the street. Heads dove back into the Pinto, and out cascaded a flurry of chains, brass knuckles, and more than one baseball bat. I don't know who had what, and I didn't stick around long enough to see what happened after they all started running up the street, so I can't tell you what “allegedly” transpired, but I will say that not a single one of those people in the park that day ever bothered me again. The Pinto people were my people, and they always had my back.

---

Boring people with no imagination sometimes refer to the town I grew up in as “Yellow City.” It might even be on a travel brochure with a yellow rose of Texas somewhere in a crooked, swoopy font. But the rest of us felt “Bomb City” in our bones, and not just because we personally wanted it blown off the map. The term was initially minted in reference to Pantex: The primary assembly and disassembly facility of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. Big City Folk always talk about when shit hits the fan and Russia (or whothefuckever) starts lobbing sky murder at us, they're gonna hit NYC and L.A. which seems perfectly logical - of course you'd hit the biggest hubs first. But kids who grew up in Amarillo never understood why the head-hancho fascists and/or terrorists (I mean, pick your flavor) with their fingers on the big red button wouldn't think to hit the fucking NUCLEAR STOCKPILE right in the goddamn middle of everything. What the hell did we know though? We were just a bunch of good-for-nothing, never gonna be nothing punk-ass kids. 

The Movie Poster

From BombCityFoundation.org :

“Bomb City is a 2017 American crime film directed by Jameson Brooks and co-written by Jameson Brooks and Sheldon R. Chick. The film is based on the death of Brian Deneke, the homicide that revealed the cultural clash between the local jocks and the punk community in Amarillo, Texas, and the result of the subsequent court case sparked debate over injustice in the American judicial system.”

Brian Deneke was just six months younger than me; we both hung out with the people in the Pinto from the park. He was always one of the first people to hug me at a show, and more often than not he'd have his meat-head dog in tow so I’d get in some therapy scritches. I'm still friends with his older brother, Jason, and people who were there that night. I remember waiting for the verdict and thinking, “There's no way this guy isn't guilty of murder because that's what the fuck happened.” He didn't just hit him once, and it sure as shit wasn't an “accident.” But he was in the right tax bracket, daddy made the right phone calls, they found the right lawyer, and that piece of shit got PROBATION. ‘Cause they were “Good Christians!” Within a week, he was at a frat party doing keg stands without a care in the world.

The guy who murdered Brian very well could have taken notes from the dudes who got a practice run in on me a few years earlier. They all hung out in the same parking lot at the same high school and played on the same sportsball teams. The patterns would have been obvious, but it doesn't matter when nobody's looking for them. This wasn’t a “new” thing the rich kids were doing to people like us.

It was my sophomore year at Tascosa High, and I was teased relentlessly every goddamn day of it. Brantley W***** was one of my most regular tormentors. He and his jock buddies and their sportsballs occupied the eastern half of the parking lot across from the school, while the west end was a mosh pit of misfit toys, ie: queers, stoners, skater bois, punks, metal-heads, musicians, artists, hippies, goths, and whatever “new wave” was besides too much hairspray and eyeliner. It was basically everyone colorful who ever wore a pair of Doc Martens, and sometimes fishnets.

I don't remember what Brantley had to yell at me that day because eventually, the slurs all kind of blended together, but I remember it was the day I'd finally had enough of his shit. I was wearing my brand new 20 eye Docs (the knee-high version) my big sister had given me for Christmas [*Cues up Nancy Sinatra*: Those boots were made for smashin’, and that's just what they'll do!] and I felt invincible - mainly because I was 15 and still had cartilage in all the important places. Anyway, instead of cowering away that day and trying to hide, I turned around and went toward him. I also don't remember what I said to him as I took that walk to the “wrong” side of the parking lot, but I know he and every single one of his friends heard it because this time HE was the one running away.

He got in the passenger side of Casey W****’s red truck. I probably smacked the window yelling at him because I remember him rolling it up pretty fast, but I certainly hadn't done any structural damage yet. There had to be close to 100 witnesses that day, and the majority of them from the east side were circling around the truck for the show in their uniform letterman jackets with popped-up polo collars and an unsurprisingly strong “Do you know who my father is!?” vibe. Every one of them were used to saying and doing whatever they wanted because there were never any consequences; today, they were at least gonna hear what I thought about that. I said what I had to say, albeit loudly, and started walking away.  West, towards the sunset, my people, and my homeland.

Meanwhile, Casey was backing up his truck to get a better starting position and pick up some speed. I don't remember if I heard the engine of the truck, or if my friends in front of me were yelling for me to turn around, but it was likely a combination of both. When I did get myself turned around, Casey's bumper was literally inches from my kneecaps.

I understand how and why most “normal” people might have frozen. It's perfectly natural, and it happens All The Time. That whole “Fight, Flight, or Freeze” shit isn't a quip for no reason. In a snap, time slowed down but the calculations came in lightning quick: “If you freeze, you die; if you run, they'll catch up, you might die a little bit later. There's only one way to go and it's UP.”

The “bouncing soles” on those Docs delivered as advertised. They absorbed the shock of me bouncing from Casey's bumper, up to the hood. When he started swerving to throw me off, I grabbed onto the windshield wipers like a bronc rider. It's hard to tell if I hung on the full 8 seconds, because the ride was over pretty quick. I let go of the wipers once I had my legs tucked back underneath me, and proceeded to run up the windshield. The last step I took was a gravity-defying, Wonder Woman inspired leap. When I re-entered the atmosphere, I landed perfectly in the middle of the roof of that red truck; I still remember the sound of the metal crumpling underneath me. I immediately bounced from there to the ground, landing on both feet, in a puff of dust, without a scratch, like I had pre-choreographed the entire scene.

Of course the cops got called; we had a liaison officer on the grounds who took the first shift. When mom showed up, I think she was more exasperated than she was mad. “What the hell has this child done now?” She was pretty hot when she rattled back the list of damages the cops told her she was financially responsible for, which included a broken passenger side headlight and both front quarter panels getting bashed in. “Mama, they're LYIN on me!!”

I told her I'd claim fucking up the roof, because I did. But between the time I hit the ground, and before the cops got called, Casey and Brantley talked their buddies into helping them decorate the truck on the other side of the school behind the mechanics shop with some equipment from the baseball team.

Guess who the cops believed, y'all. Here's a hint: it wasn't me. I was the only one facing charges. Didn't matter that it was self-defense. I had weird hair, and was therefore clearly the criminal.

That was my introduction to Potter County Juvenile Probation. I was officially in the system. I was on a documented “watch list” at the school, and sent to the family doctor who gave me a mint green piece of paper with 15 questions on it and decided I was depressed. I was insulted and it probably didn't help when I yelled at him, “I'm not depressed, I'm pissed the fuck off!” Turns out I was, in fact, clinically depressed but that had been true since I was seven years old. It wasn't a ‘new’ thing stemming from that incident, but semantics or whatever. “We're gonna be putting you on some Prozac anyway for whatever *gestures vaguely* THIS is.” Hmkay. Cool, cool. At least mom was glad I finally learned how to defend myself.

Little did I know, the Wonder Woman I discovered I was capable of channeling that day would turn up helpful again - almost exactly thirty years later - as I was standing in front of our house, watching a white, unmarked, windowless van driving towards me…

The Beginnings of a Breakdown

I finally upgraded my phone this week! Not because I “wanted” to, but because I HAD to.  Everybody's dropped a phone. I've dropped mine a gazillion times, but that's what they make those case things for, and they work amazingly well. There have been times I whoopsied in some truly awful places, including the toilet. Never a crack, nary a shatter, until THIS phone. 

But I didn't just drop this phone… 

---

The neighbors across the street and down two houses have been an issue for years. It started when they kept letting anywhere between 7 and 13 dogs run loose every goddamn day. That's when I figured out 98% of the people coming in and out of that house didn't actually live there; of the two women who do live there, neither own a dog. They don't own the house either, they're renting, and everyone else is “just visiting.” So the problematic people are less “neighbors” and would be more accurately coined “squatters.” Squatters who picked a yard to live in with no fence, and the concept of a leash isn't so much a matter of safety, as it is clearly an imposition of their freedumb. 

I lost count years ago of how many dogs I've carried back to that house. Several times, their side door was just wide-the-fuck-open, and I'd put the dogs inside the house and shut the damn door *for* them. Not only did I never get a singular “Thanks”, they seemed rather annoyed by my presence in general. I was polite the first few times; I still have that “customer service” voice I can combine with the patience of my “teacher” one, and  it's usually quite effective at communicating, even with children. I told the man who seemed to be the most responsible for the gray and white pit bull I was carrying back to him for the 6th time, “She's yours, right? I can tell she's a sweet dog, it's just that mine is super territorial when it comes to our yard and he's a good 100 pounds of muscle; it's a sitch every time she makes it to my yard and I just don't want anybody to get hurt.” No response. He just grabbed the dog, put her in the house and shut the door. Hmkay, that's fine; good chat. That'll be the last time I do that. And it was. 

My voice has always carried fairly well, whether I intend for it to or not. Now that I'm living with my mother who's half deaf on a good day, I kinda stay in “outside voice” mode; I usually have to roll it back a good decibel when I run into people who still have functioning ear canals.  If I WANT to be heard across the street and down 2 houses, they're gonna. No more need to walk down there; I can make my point from HERE, and have taken the opportunity to do so on more than one occasion. Most often, it was about them getting their dogs out of my yard, so I wouldn’t be responsible for cleaning up another crime scene. 

Without getting into ALL the details of what's gone on between here and there - including the fact I’m down to one dog out of the three I moved here with - we'll just say shit escalated.

During the first week of July (2023), I had fallen asleep on the couch and mom came to wake me up. It was 2:12 in the morning, and I could tell she was panicked: “Something's going on outside, you might want to come check it out.” Oh, shit! If it's loud enough out there to wake Dixie up, we might actually be about to die. I ran to the front door.

  There were more cops outside than I'd ever seen down here, and there were a LOT of them that one day I made a mistake all the way out loud at a wall of them a few months earlier. That incident was about the mountains of trash in their yard, and a fucking CRANE the city regularly has to use to haul it all off. There's not supposed to be this much action at the ass-end of a dead-end street, but here we are again. What. The Actual. Fuck.

I took a seat on the porch to quietly observe. “We got front row seats for the show tonight, y'all!” There were 3 cop cars slightly to the left of me, and probably 4 more up the rest of the block in the other direction. Mom wandered out to join me with Cheeto on his leash and sat down like we were at the goddamn movies, just missing her bucket of popcorn. Problem is, I haven't been able to watch a movie with her since the 80’s without her talking over it, and we don't have a pause button for this shit, mom - it's LIVE. 

Soon, I could hear the muffled barks of a Belgian Malinois getting closer; he was in the back of a white, unmarked Suburban and they were pulling up across from us. “Mom, take Cheeto and get back in the house… they're about to bring that dog out and the last thing we need right now is my fuzzy little Princess going ape-shit thinking he's a tough guy.” It was easier to blame the dog than it would have been to keep her from talking over the movie while I was in investigative mode. She saluted me, tossed in an “Aye, aye, Captain!” and off she went. 

As I mentioned earlier, I'm near the end of a dead-end street. I used to call it a cul-de-sac, because we're right at the edge of the turn-around part, until one day I realized cul-de-sacs exist in neighborhoods that you don’t have to drive past two junk yards and a meth lab to get to. They have landscaping and shit, and none of their cars are up on blocks or have duct tape on the windows. I was ashamed of that for a little while, then guessed there's gotta be more people than I’d previously calculated who live in Little Rock and have to drive past two junk yards and a meth lab to get a LOT of places here, whether they're in our tax bracket or not. It’s a thing, y'all. Anyway, the only house dead-end-er-er than ours is Smitty's place; he's at the END end. And there he was, in his driveway, shirtless and squinting with multiple flashlights in his face, dealing with somewhere between 8-10 cops. Most of them were just wandering around with their dicks in their hands, looking at the dirt. Some of them might have been checking Facebook. I listened for a minute, then turned the other direction, up the block; more cars were pulling up. 

Those guys are in different hats. They stepped out of different looking cars. Those are State Troopers. This is seriouser shit than normal. And now there's a helicopter with a spotlight. I'm so glad I'm awake for this! Pan back to the dog. 

The chunkiest cop out of 30 I saw that night was handling the K-9 unit. I watched him waddle from Smitty's driveway, up towards the edge of the woods, then back over towards Mz. Wanda's yard, directly across the street from us. They kept on toodily-boopin past the Pastor's house, then between them to the back of the trap house. The K-9 goes into business mode; two or three cops start yelling, “Get on the ground, NOW!” I probably shouldn't still be outside with this going on, but it sounds like it's about to get to the good part!

I hear a staticky radio squawk for back-up behind #9. I watch a dozen officers continue to bumble in the street, looking around confused as fuck - like they just got the news some shit was going down. Nobody was watching the goddamn dog but ME. Nobody else sees the spotlight from the helicopter? I hear a rookie squeak out, “Where's number 9?” For fuck's sake, you're standing right in front of it. Granted, it's dark and the street numbers don't make sense anywhere in this god-forsaken town, and these boys clearly ain't from ‘round this neck of the woods, so maybe they’d appreciate some help. For the first time that night, I activated my big girl outside voice: “We’re 13, there's 10, that one's 9!” A flashlight appears as an officer confirms the number on the pastor's house; he says, “Thanks!” I bark, “Welcome!” and go back to shutting my big mouth, at least temporarily. Until the pastor came out to thank the po-lice, I'm assuming, for not shooting him or his wife; I went ahead and hollered, “Mornin’, neighbor!” on his way back inside with a wave as casual as any other day because THIS IS JUST HOW WE ALL LIVE NOW. I let go a “Hey, girl!” when I saw Mz. Wanda peekin around her curtains so she'd know I'd been out taking notes and, now that I think about it, I did say “Mornin’” to one more officer as they walked in front of the house because they were cute but aside from that, I was quiet as a church mouse, hand to gawd, y'all. 

Soooo, *checks notes* Here's What Ha’ Happened:

The State Troopers got a call somewhere outside the jurisdiction of local police to an abandoned house where the tweaker/squatter/garbage-humans had broken in. A high-speed chase ensued - hilarity did not. Either dude's plan was shit, or he didn't have one at all; I'm leaning towards the latter. He was obviously trying to make it back to “home base” when he drove right the fuck past it. The driveway is so full of trash they can't use it, and there are usually 4 or 5 other non-running vehicles parked blocking the front of the house so he just kept driving until there wasn't road anymore, which wasn't far at all. Dude was so high, he turned into Doc Brown; “Where we're going, we don't need roads!” Well, yeah, but the car you’re driving like you stole sure as shit still does. 

Dude was off-roading just past where Smitty's driveway stops. He kept driving towards the trees trying to find an exit route until one of Smitty's trailers got in the way and BLAMMO! There wasn't enough duct tape in the world to keep that car running after that, so he decided to give running a try himself. It was only 3 houses away from where he was try’na get. How the hell did he NOT make it? These people super suck at criming, y’all. He didn't even go inside the house, he was just hanging out in the backyard waiting for the cops to show up. Even then, I don't think they would have thought to look around the corner had it not been for the dog dragging over Officer McDunkin’. 

The guy they wound up cuffing and putting into the back of a squad car wasn't a resident of this block, but he was definitely a regular. I see him over there every day, working on cars that will never run. He was out of jail within 3 days and back to his regular bullshit. 

  I know they put the hoods up on their non-running cars they pretend to work on to signal to people up the street that there's people outside who might be witnesses to their criming. Make no mistake, it in no way STOPS them from criming in broad daylight, but at least they have a solid signal situation. Another one of their methods when they’re waiting for someone to do a pick-up and/or delivery, is to spray a water hose on the driveway until they see someone coming, then they'll turn around and spray it towards the back of the house; super cunning, and in no way suspicious at all. They're always “cleaning” something, but nothing’s ever clean? I've seen them run that hose for 45 minutes, all the way up to, like 5 straight hours. “Who the hell is crazy enough to watch someone water their driveway for 5 hours,” asked nobody. Me, that's who. It was 115 degrees outside that day but I had time on my hands, the will to watch them squirm, and an even deeper desire to watch one of them crack, so I made sure I stayed hydrated and grabbed some sunscreen. After about 3 hours, the girl they had on hose duty just started crying as she screamed at the people behind the house, “She won't leeeeeeave!!!” I laughed so hard, I peed a little bit. It was 100% worth turning my ankles into bacon bits sitting on the porch all afternoon. I won! I still don't know what the prize was, but that's not the point. I set out to achieve a goal, and I got the damn thing done. 

If you're thinking to yourself, “She's got a pretty fucked up gratification system,” you are indeed correct. I don't know where the wiring got crossed and I don't know how to fix it. We're obviously not gonna get to the story of how my phone got broken today, but I feel like this is a fairly solid set-up for later. This story is just about the beginning… it's gonna get worse. You might as well grab a helmet and a bag of chips. 

This was the night I realized how grossly incompetent the majority of the people in charge around here seem to be, and I lost what little faith I had left in “the system.” We'd ALL been calling the cops on that house, and nothing ever happens. Some of us were hopeful that the Staties being involved would make a difference this time, but it didn’t. They all keep telling us they don't have enough evidence for a warrant, so there's nothing they can do. 

But what if I got the evidence FOR them? 

Seemed like a good enough idea at the time. 

Spoiler alert: It Wasn't.

Because then the motherfuckers hit me with a van. 

[To be continued… ]

How to start a thing:

(Specifically, this thing.)

Just. Start. Typing.

I've known I needed to write again for a good long while now. I pay actual money for a place to have a blog, and I'm not doing anything with it. I think the biggest obstacle so far, has been where to start. How the hell am I supposed to package this? I keep being told by invisible forces of society that I'm supposed to pick A thing to be good at, and stick to that. “That's how we keep the packaging tidy! It's all about the marketing, really. You shouldn't argue with the marketing experts.” What if I don't want to be just one thing? What if I actually, physically and mentally just can’t? What if I'm accidentally (or very much on purpose) good at a whole buncha stuff, and want to keep doing it all because I was taught not to be wasteful? Here come the eye rolls: “What a burden it must be to have been gifted so many talents!” HahaHA! It's called ADHD, y'all. On a scale of one to ten, I'm a solid “How the fuck is she even functioning?” It’s a hell of a ride. Get yourself strapped in and try to keep up.

Just like I can't pick one thing to do until I die (I don't know how anybody does that without being bored to actual death), I'm not gonna be able to pick a singular topic to talk about here just for the sake of having a blog about a specific thing. I've already derailed 100 times. I tried for 6 months to write a story about “The Little Red Bag” I meant to build for my brother, but wound up keeping it to carry at my nephew's wedding. And then the State Fair. It's a great bag. It used to be a cow. Now it’s something else. That's pretty much the story. Nobody wants to hear, “I gave myself a gnarly set of blisters punching all these dadburned holes!” That cow was an asshole and I was glad he died by the time I finished all 3 bags I made out of him. Anybody wanna know about the time I ran a rotary blade through my middle finger into the bone? Nope. “Keep your tools sharp, kids, and always make sure the safety’s off!” I'm probably not gonna be too chatty about silversmithing either; there's only so many ways to say “Fire makes metal hot and I smash it with a hammer.” “Next, rinse your steel shot, then you’re gonna wanna take that still-dripping, mesh strainer and hang it directly over that electrical outlet next to the sink.” Don't be surprised if one day I want to talk about rocks though, because those stay pretty fascinating to me. As far as my lapidary work, it's a snooze-fest. “When you put the rock on the grinder, it grinds away the rock...” It was right there in the name the whole time. “It will continue its job with little-to-no concern about your knuckle meat, nor whether or not you’d prefer to still have it attached.”

“So, what exactly is it that you'd like to write about, Shea?”

THE REST OF THE THINGS!

We're gonna be talkin' about some cops and robbers, fo sho. Seems to be a recurring theme since we’ve moved to Little Rock. Who Knew!? (Everybody, Shea. Literally, every-goddamn-body in America. Hindsight and whatnot.) I've definitely got a personal opinion about the criminal “justice” system in Arkansas, and I've got more to say about their medical marijuana pilferage. The ONE point I'm letting them keep for now is that they got the cannabis thing implemented faster than Texas did, which is one of the reasons I moved here. The fact that Okla-goddamn-homa out-paced botha y'all on the whole sitch is gonna get at least one middle-finger of a paragraph, but again, that’s for later.

I've learned more about Complex PTSD in the past few months than I have in the 30+ years it's been nesting in this fuzzy little head - another “gift” I’m learning to process - mine’s got more layers than the British Bake Off tent during pastry week. What triggered this new understanding? It wasn’t a handshake from Paul Hollywood.

You probably don't realize how many white, windowless, unmarked vans drive around your city. There's a LOT, y'all. It's hella bothersome to realize the same van you know drove out of its way to assault you, followed by its occupants jumping out and robbing you, is allowed to just casually park across the street from your house on a daily basis. It’s been pretty stressful and I’m not all the way ready to talk about it more than that yet, because that dug up a whole fresh layer of my sophomore year when those assholes tried to run me over with a truck (yes, I still remember their names, in case y'all wondered how long I'll hold a grudge), and topped it off with a very unhealthy reminder (from an entirely different chapter, early 20s) that methamphetamines and white supremacy go hand-in-hand, especially when allowed to run the fuck amok unchecked. Once you've had the dog shit beat out of you by one of those motherfuckers, it's RILL goddamn hard to un-lump them all together. Those “Good ol’ Boy” systems. The cops and the criminals are running the same goddamn playbook. There’s plenty more where that came from, but it's quite a bit chewier to workshop the punchlines on that kinda shit. Moving on.

“Good writers are only good writers when they do it with consistency. Pick a structure: Daily, Weekly, Monthly – then stick with that. Do it the same way every time or nobody will love you anymore, and you'll die alone after your vagina falls off.” It's hard enough managing my own brain, but now I gotta do it the way somebody else says is the best way because the rules they made up are better than mine because... WHY? Hell, that’s the best way to make sure I NEVER get it done. I don’t even play well by my own set of rules, much less someone else’s.

I've been trying to figure out the thing to do that won't break my body every damn day. I trained dogs until it damn near broke my back, and had to pick a different thing to do. Turns out, swinging a hammer all day, be it at a hide or a piece of metal, wasn't the easiest physical route to take either. At least I'm used to doing dumb things with my body. Now I've got arthritis and do dumb shit with sharp things and fire. It's dangerous no matter what I’m doing. Somewhere along the line, I forgot that typing words to make them be on the outside of my dumb, exhausted meat-packaging was not only super helpful for my own mental health, some of you nut-bags out there actually still enjoy reading it, and typing rarely gives me blisters or makes me bleed. I appreciate each and every single one of you who reminded me of that, and that there are, indeed, still beautiful humans among us.

I really just needed to give myself a starting point, and this is where we landed, folks. Today's topic is how you should fully expect me to never be able to stay on any given topic. Welcome to the adventure!

Go ahead and get ready for the day I get on a roll about pockets (POCKETS!), and don't be shocked when that rolls us into Victorian architecture or the hazards of bicycling on a cobblestone street. Where this goes is gonna be just as much a surprise for me as it is for anybody else, so let's have some fun with it, shall we?

Tea Time

I woke up on Friday, October the 13th talking to my friend Kathleen Pyeatt like she was still alive. I don't remember exactly how long ago it was she died, and I don't care to; time doesn't mean anything anymore anyway.

The day I met her the cancer was already at stage 4, but I didn't know that when I sat down and joined her for a smoke break on her porch. Next to the front door of the almost purple, infamously named “Witch Hause,” there was a hand painted sign that said, “Y'all Motherfuckers Need Some Jesus!” I laughed until I peed a little, and we'd been friends ever since. People went back and forth between calling her a green witch and a kitchen witch, but that just means she was really good with plants and was a straight up BOSS at whipping up food so good it made me cry.

Inside this old, rickety house built around 1920-ish, I'm guessing, and falling apart at *every* seam, every wall was painted Fun House colors - chartreuse, fuchsia, tangerine, sunshine – every table had a book I wanted to read or something fun to look at and touch. She'd done something magical in that house with original art, Goodwill treasures, and a few not-quite-empty buckets of paint. It was as enchanting as it was drafty. This was the house that would become my second home while I was trying to get us moved from Texas to Arkansas. I wouldn't have made it here without Kathleen.

The last time I saw her before her meat suit gave out on us, she gave me a deck of tarot cards and two books. They've been sitting in the corner of my living room under a big, ceramic sugar skull mom got me one year around Halloween. Every day I'd go to that window to check on my plants, it felt a little like Kathleen was over there, talking shit about my soil mixture, or how the snake plant was blocking her tea time light. I finally started talking back to her out loud, “Fine, bitch, I'm brangin' you some gotdamn water,” and it feels like we're still laughing together. I know she knows when I'm having a rough time, and I can hear her hollering at me, “Snap the fuck out of it, bitch, we got shit to do!” And I did.

We sat down Friday for our old morning tea time, and got her all painted up. We laughed and talked shit ALL day. It mighta been a day we both needed. Now she's up on a shelf so I can talk to her more often, and she can still keep an eye on my plants.