The Cyclical Wondering Life

March 10, 2016

Old Men spitting. Yes, we are on our way to being droolers. When we spit some of us just can't,  that simple. Getting old is like when you are younger but in reverse, a lot skills we had to learn, we are unlearning or having to learn again too. You know you are an old guy when you think back to when you first learned how to spit as an awakening to adolescence. You remember spending time with your friends letting the thick drool and letting it slowly escape from your mouth with gravity and trying to stretch it out all the way to the toilet bowl  and then sucking it back into your mouth before it touches anything there

So, you know you are getting old and pull out the nearly week old  bread from the storage and there is some mold on it. You remember the story of how penicillin was discovered, scrape off some of the light mold and slice the bread for toast thinking it will not harm me, I have survived much worse and it could have a beneficial result.

You know you are becoming an old guy when you go to spit and you then find it later on your collar or your sleeve. It could be embarrassing in social situations. You know you are getting old when your already undersized junk is shrinking even further and trying to get hold of it becomes a real challenge and you got to pee like mad, yet can't seem to extract it from your pants. Depends! Maybe it is time for Depends. I don't want to go back to diapers yet!


March 6, 2016

It should be no surprise to me  that persons I admire who came before me are passing back to dust, just as I must when my abused body gives up. The ultimate and final surrender when we exhale our last breath. Death comes to us all, I have worked through many regrets, yet a few still linger reminding me that I could have done better. I don't need to be to curious because my time will come and I will then not know forever more, reduced to dust as from which I came.(posted to Facebook this day. We will see, we will see who comments and what they say)

Today, Feb. 28, 2016

I have drunk two cups of coffee and it is great for getting me going but better even for me to procrastinate. It is a balancing act and I did some clean up after breakfast, Sunday I am going to do my OHP paperwork, I think it is about due and need it done. Then to the Hollywood Theater to see a movie that is hosted by Chris Rock and meet another school bus driver there, a guy who tries to find as many free events to attend. Younger than me of course.

I am de-revolutionizing,  moving towards a nomadic life style.  I just thought of what I am doing and why. it is all starting to make sense to me, all the going back to my past to reclaim or assimilate it into my current life, revisiting friends, reclaiming friends or just perpetuating friendships has come full circle for me now including me in the chain of events. Where I used to be looking at it from outside, I am now looking at my life from within.

I am working towards a nomadic life stye. I may have experienced one in my past lives. I just heard on the radio the Mississippi River and it's flooding. then I thought about tornado alley in the midwest and the cold winters in the Northern territories. Then I am thinking about great civilizations and how they have fallen under setting down roots. I think about the season, our planet and it's orbit, I think about the natural cycle of life and determined I can find my happiness on a wandering path. It all ties together and I am working on moving towards it with my idea of mobile home where I can visit people and places and choose the weather I want to experience.

I am coming to a better understanding of my place in the world. One of the links in my personal evolution has been revealed to me. I am an important link in my own destiny! The cyclic nature of our world, our environment. I need to be more nomadic and that is what I am working towards.



 My reading comprehension is good in the moment, but recollecting what I read is something wholly different. I got that typo you made because of the context and the sentence structure. My little brain works well in most cases. I went to the web because I needed a little back ground on Expressive Arts Practice. I had little inkling of a name for this practice. Makes sense. Many of us know healing the human is about a total experience and communicating through music, art and humor are important aspects of regaining mental and physical health or just communicating if regaining is not possible. We can elevate those who are down, including ourselves through experiences.

It is a bigger world out there and  we are so small.  As far as age goes, besides the physical, I have learned to nurture my inner child, adolescent and older guy. I have been learning to honor most of myself. This means I have continued to learn and be teachable, to not loose sight of the big and small picture. I do get easily distracted, but am working on a goal of a nomadic life style and am pretty focused on that, yet I am taking a more circular route to get there.



Dec. 12, 2014

Posted to my facebook page this short writing:

I have always thought of myself as someone who missed or travelled from one time to another. I am not sure whether it is truth or fiction, yet it is my life and what I have made of it. As I am getting older, I am again traveling through my own memories back in time to when I only skirted along the surface off my more youthful times and now I am inspecting those times with more attention than I seemed to have possessed then!

For me, this is a new understanding of incorporating my past with my present, finding the depth that I so carelessly misplaced in my immature thinking. However, it is that very thinking that made who I am today, the kind, warm mature person who is living the dream that I have always wanted. I always wanted to know who I am and I have a  better understanding of who I am today. Barriers have always been placed in my path, yet I have adapted, adjusted and navigated around them. I have had help from that positive energy that continues to go unnamed except as magic, the connection that we all share. Sifting through and finding the good purposes is often a challenge that distracts us from that goodness. I have had my share of distractions. My life has not been boring, even when I am wiling away time idly. My focus has been building over years and as long as a decade of independence without owning property, seeking that nomadic lifestyle. I even sought that lifestyle as early as 18 years old but didn't know that was what I was searching for. The clues were unclear to me. My intensity has always distracted me from what it is I truly believe in.

Time might be moving to fast, slow down!

Last post was over a year and a quarter ago. Not a good sign. Just got home from work, still drving a school bus. It is just not a good job, toxic would get a good description. The kids on my middle school route want me gone. I have a new strategy with them, keep my bill hat on and only glance at them once in awhile, because when they can't see my face in the mirror that is mounted above my head, they can't tell if they are annoying me and have mostly quiet. Of course, we have a new seating arrangement and it is a process to complete.

Of course it took a lot of time to get two students removed from my bus, but finally they really hung themselves by leading chants about S E X ! What's that spell most of the back of the bus screaming out SEX! Then they did the R A P E one and that was over the top. When I wrote the referral, the Vice Principal. Chuckled about the SEX part, but when he got to the RAPE part he was completely shocked! This is what I had been telling him and his advice had been pick your battles, build relationships and they are just being normal middle schoolers.

Those two are gone, now it is I Fucked your mother. I got the VP's attention again and he said he would talk to the parents and fhe kids. One of the kids apparently snitched off the other kid. I couldn't get them to do it. The one kid said he had a new system for riding the bus. I take that to mean an agreement to not use profane language. However today, I threatened him with a referral before we even left the school! I later retracted that because I am picking my battles! This is the worst job I have ever had, but the money is the best I can get.

I am planning on retiring after my truck is finished next year. That is what I am working towards. I still haven't decided if I will keep my car. I should find some VW bus guy who wants the engine and traby perhaps. Or just seen the whole thing and get they block head Harley clone or whatever V-Twin winds my watch.

One last thing.  A short. Bus driver today hit and knocked down a pedestrian on a street today. I don't know the details nor do I know if I will ever find out, but the pedestrian was not getting up and the driver couldn't even call it in, another driver did it. I could tell the driver was devastated. If I hurt someone while driving, I would be lost for awhile. It is heart wrenching to have known someone who died by the wheels of a truck. To think I could driver after that, would just suck! I will find out more details as I investigate. One thing for sure the driver will lose his job. That's just the way it is.

Where we landed in the future

We are in the future having traveled here from the past. We have lived or survived to be here now. Often being in the present is so sought after by others, but I am here now having attatined my position since the last entry. Why do I care? Why does it bother some that they want to hurry up so they can relax. Get out of my way, I am in a hurry to relax!

Just sit down and breath. It is November 29, 2015 and distant from the last entry. I have been writing elsewhere, here, but not on this blog. Here as in this iPad, on pages. I have also decided to stop reading periodicals because they interfer with my writing. I intend to publish and will be sending out copies soon so that I can receive polite or not so polite rejections of my writing until I find an outlet for my musings. Mostly about injustices of the school bus driver and how we are treated and encouraged to engage ourselves in a toxic environment and given lip service about how important our  service is and denegrated when we consider withholding our service. How is it my fault the employers can not attract enough qualified people to do the job that I do? Try the pay is low and the stress is high. If it isn't the children, it is the other drivers on the road.

This job now that I am back to work has consumed my life. This job takes a lot more energy than we are told it will take. Only now for some of us has it sunk in. I have done this job  since 2007 with an extended break from May 2014 to Feb. 2015 from a misunderstanding with my location manager about my actions and how he thought it wise to terminate my employment. Through negotiations and implied threats from government agencies I got my job back with some retroactive pay. I had to sign a return to work agreement and it has some unreasonable requirements that I have been told to violate without the termination promised in the document. It is just part of the most rediculous con traditions of this job. I have been willfully violating my return to work agreement with the express understanding that deviation from route or rerouting is expected of a driver if there are issues with the route. In other words we must drive in a safe manner that most effectively delivers our charges to their designated pick up and drop off locations avoiding traffic stalls and blocked passages. We must not call these deviations/rerouting in but I document them in a notebook just incase I am questioned about them. I will try and make more entries here in the coming year having missed so much time in the last one. Of course, I keep a journal and the essay I am working on takes up  much of my energy that is left over after my job sucks up all of it.

To many to's

to many distractions.... to many papers.... to many lists....to much clutter.... to many action items.... to many minutes waking up.... to many thoughts.... to much disorganization.... to few days left in summer.... too many stories to tell.....too many expectations.... too much stress.... too many feelings....to few storage spaces.... to many unfinished projects.... to much lethargy..... to many gaps in memory.... to many days that passed I don't recollect.... to many pennies piling up in stores....to many pennies ending up in the landfill....to much inflation....to many low wage jobs.... to many angry people.... to many people being bad....to many deniers.... to little change.... to many people killing.... to much government gridlock....to many dead beat elected representatives.... to many people wasting.... to much wasted food.... to much water wasted....to much wasted fuel.... to much ignorance....to much war for oil....to much war for greed....to much war for lies.... to much war for peace....to many dead from war....to many dead from "peace".... to much too much.... to much infinity.... to much expanding universe....to many stars....to much rain.... to much sun.... to much wind....to much cold....to many cigarette smokers....to few exercising.... to many complaining.... to many situations we lack influence.... to many unanswered questions....to many patterns....to many fossil fuel users.... to many pit mines.... to many strip mines....to many dead miners.... to many oil wells....to many dead oil workers.... to many people starving, to many people sick, to many people unevenly distributed on this planet.... to many leaky faucets....to many dollar stores....to few decent wages.... to many liars....to many to's to list!

I am going back to the future or how I am validating my feelings of the past with the present...

I may have mentioned growing my hair since July 2009, the last time I buzzed my hair to the scalp. I am in the 5th year of growing it. When I was much younger I never grew it this long. They wouldn't permit it. They got upset and oppressed me when by hair touched my collar. My parents didn't care, it was the public school system I was an indentured slave to.

My first opposition to authority came in the 6th grade when I learned the power of Fuck You when said to an adult's face. When an adult, our PE teacher who happened to be a former US Marine wanted 3 of us who palled around together to do laps or some nonsense because he didn't like us and needed to show us who was boss. We almost to a boy at the same time told him Fuck You! And then we ran and we out ran this guy. Of course, we got caught when we went back to school the next day or was it when they called our homes and spoke with our parents and beat because that was what our fathers did for punishment in those days. We were also forbidden to hang together any longer. That wasn't that hard for me and eventually I found new friends to hang with. Hanging out with different people over time was my m/o. I would form friendships and loose them just as easily. I have no friendships left from elementary school, no one I kept in touch with. I didn't even keep them around as I changed schools etc. That is the nature of some of our relationships from the past. I am discovering finally that it is ok to let go of friendships because as we mature our likes and values often change and what we like to do and who we like to do it with changes. I am finally Ok with that, finally!

I started writing this near to the beginning of the year and it is now past the middle of the year. It is Ok, as I have been busy with all kinds of adventures. As I often say, " I am consistently inconsistent" Of course that doesn't mean I am unreliable. I have almost always been reliable and consistent to get to work for instance. I have made punctuality an obsession. I have been punctual when I was going to work and later to school in my early and late 40's. Who knows if I am done with school? I don't know that far into the future.

My hair is still growing and I was frustrated with it yesterday and considered cutting it, but didn't.  This is actually the first time in my life I have felt comfortable with whatever my characteristics and outwardly appearance happens to be... Took all this time to be accepting of myself, without having doubt if I am doing the right thing or not. I was terminated from my 6.5 year job of driving school buses and a darned stressful job at that. I am ready to leave it behind. I wasn't at first, but doors opening and doors closing well, got that backwards but you know. One closes and a new one opens, perhaps something that has opened before and maybe it is time to once again go there. Or even some that I have never done will beckon to me. I know they are.

I am surprisingly tired and I didn't do anything to warrant it!

I am drowsy, having driven up into the Columbia River Gorge this afternoon, getting out to take various photo's. I am listening to the listener picks from one of the local commercial radio stations, thinking about what I am going to get for dinner. I am changing my eating habits as my 1 and only New Years resolution. Change the way I eat and everything else will change appropriately along the way.

On the news on TV which is on mute, San Antonio Texas, Porta Potties catch fire! Big news story of 2014.

Maybe I am down realizing I will be going back to work in several days. I was so relaxed not working for over a week. Wow, and now I guess I am gearing up for the coming next rush of working. 12 weeks of work until Spring Break. Ugh! Of course we will have various days off along the way. 47 working days until a week off in March. Then we go another 2.5 months until summer break. All of this will likely go more quickly than I like. As I age, will be 64 this year, Yikes! Got to find someone who will still love me at that age. That's not really a high priority. Not a likely to happen though since I am not well to do. It is only well to do men it seems that get partners at my age. I think they must have a lot of bank accounts. I don't back so those don't count as assets for me.

I'm wandering. I will have to start walking more. The TV news says it makes a big difference and I know from the past it is true. I am just so used to doing nothing. A family tradition, sitting still reading or what I am doing, playing on the computer. Tomorrow I will not drive anywhere, but walk to destinations. Actually, I don't like to drive around that much since I am still driving a school bus during the school year. Driving my car around town is not as safe as driving my bus. Got to go now, maybe a nap. The other thing I am going to try and do is come here and write more. Not just this crap either. Something real, such as in my other blog which contains it seems better content.

My life is a balancing act

There is a person I want to contact and the shadow of proper is hanging over my head telling me it would be improper for me to use a business phone number for a personal contact.

My own values may not be the same as the societal values and hence the conflict. I know all of us must consider the societal values because they are standards we can all agree are there for each and every one of us, almost.

I have to look at what I am intending. I am intending to ask this person if they would like to meet for a cup of tea or something similar, because I am curious about this person. I also know my limitations and whether this person would consider it inappropriate and I don't want t make a bad impression.

You would have to read my other blog to know what that means to me. I am not going into it here.

So, as I have found in the past, putting down my thoughts and feelings to words that I can read seems to relieve some of the pressure I feel. I just need to learn patience and wait until I see this person in person. There is time. Yet sometimes time seems to play tricks on me. My needs, my desires, my wants are not all the same and they don't always align with what I expect society has in mind.

Take a breath, do something else, time will pass quickly enough and I will be able to compose my thoughts and express them in person.

Now, in 2020, May, 12 I don't even know who this person was etc This lis how it is supposed to be. Estranged you and me.