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This is what passes as "vacation" for me. Notice that I didn't use the word, "holiday." A festive occasion...perhaps not. But inspirational in its own peculiar way. After the first twelve hours of monotonously going through the template-building motions, there was NO WAY that I was going to plod mindlessly for 24 more. With so little else to do but webcrawl and dodge the Klansman (barrel-chested, no-assed, partially-toothless, racist mercurial cocksucker... am I being unkind?), I chose to return home. Fancy that. Back to the womb... as it is. Only, this retreat has turned out to be a multi-mile odyssey for the elusive non-cracked Isuzu cylinder head. Taking me to every junkyard in the area, and beyond. From the shadow of the Blue Ridge, the rolling blacktop on the road to Richmond, to the hardscrabble close to F'bg. where people are being shot by rifles in shopping centers. God, what fucked up people walk among us. But interesting ones, as well. Part of yesterday's futile search intersected my path with the lady who legitimized art in this bible-thumping burg... the same place that includes art in the school curriculum, and hopes you'll grow out of it as soon as you graduate. A pity that things didn't pan out well between us, early on (a confusion of escalating rates for studio space). She's cool, though... and moving on to the outskirts of Central Park. Her turn to create. I like the possibilities of that. I even gave Miss Jane the opportunity to ride along, on my last stop at a most dilapidated scrapyard. A quiet ride of call-and-little-response. I guess my mind is overactive as landscape rolls by...setting imagination, and spouting off at the head alight. Only, that pump won't get primed for the life on me. Carnival Of Souls. Today, after burning a CD for Biggles, and making a call to my last resort on the list before I called the local towtruck to haul away the Trooper and buy an old truck, providence shone. A block from Biggles' house. Lo, there sat before me on a greasy rack in the dim warehouse, the donor for the ailing 4DZ1 2.3 liter. Miracles never cease. Across the street, behind the tombstone sales building, was a little hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint... festooned with old advertising signs, reeking of hickory smoke. Shelter with hot sauce. And friendly small-talk... neighborhood folks coming in and instantly going behind the counter, helping with the orders, and themselves. Sounds like Pam's place. Dropped the tunes with the Varga Girl, bought some more bits, and made for the hillside. Last bit of daylight spent hacking at the dwindling underbrush that's beginning to reveal the contours underneath. This is where I'll be as soon as the motor's assembled again... labour sanctuary. Distant traffic punctuated by woodpeckers... and the chainsaw. Better, by far, than the usual ass-and-psyche numbing. Even a few snapshots got burned. Exotic, no. But I guess this is what I meant about intertwining the interests into some kind of order. And I did vacate, after all.
Issues, in certral VA. |
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