Lately my weirded-out-ness spills over into my aura of attitudes, and I’m thinking that it’s easy to tell that I’m worried about my uncertain futures just by looking at me.

I think I’m worried about employment vs. lifestyle, again. Or just worried about having to leave here so that I can retain a decent job somewhere else. And it’s not really Richmond. Not as much. There’s no more surprises left in this place. It’s really pretty and comfy here, it’s true. But it’s not the city, so it must be the people. And the friends I’ve made.

I’ve got enough experience to know that I’ve just about made all the important friends that I’ll ever make, and after four years here, I’ve found some more important friends and important friend-ships, important times, much importance that I would be very depressed to leave behind.

Leave behind for another new place. I envision myself finding a place in the country, where no one can bother me and I can’t bother anyone. And working my 40-hour weeks and living the other 128 hours in varying levels of seclusion. And for a guy like me, that’s plenty of time to go stir-crazy, then neurotic, then slightly insane, then psychologically damaged.

This past weekend, I decided to try something:

For as long as I can remember, I have had this large device in my kitchen. It is rectangular and white, and it has doors, and on the inside it resembles a cabinet, but it is quite chilled within, and when the doors are kept closed, I would imagine that the temperature becomes uniformly chill, perhaps to around 40 degrees.

So on Sunday, I quit eluding the grocery store, and instead I entered, and I made substantial purchases, including an array of items which would most certainly perish in a matter of days (nay, hours!) without the inclusion of a proper chill environment.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Once home, I placed the chill items in the chill cabinet, and they have been prospering ever since. I cannot find the words to express my delight! Finally, my diet can extend beyond restaurants (fastfood) and canned goods!

Or, this facetiousness could have also gone like this:

I was finally able to overcome my habit of never ever buying milk or vegetables or other perishables for fear of being sent somewhere far away soon afterwards.

I guess that means I have confidence in my situation.

-

With my new inventory of fresh vegetables, I cooked stir-fry last night. And watched a dvd I had rented called “The Last Samurai”. I was not having a themed evening. My intentions with the stir-fry meal were completely independent of my watching of the movie.

Anyway, I will assume that the actual last samurai in the movie was not Tom Cruise’s character, because that would be complete horseshit. Which means that, since this is hollywood, Tom Cruise was yes probably intended to be the last samurai.

But I will assume that the last samurai was the more obvious Japanese guy with the sword. And, my friends, it turns out that the Last Samurai’s last words were in a language called English. Fancy that, old chap. You spend your lifetime specializing in your native tongue, only to favor some bastardized secondary language for your last few sentences ever. What a sham(e).

Also funny, was the meeting of leaders before the last battle, on the plains of Japan, a battle between New Japan and Old Japan, which would finally decide the direction that the evolving country would go.

And then the fucking terms were given by the American, in Engrish, saying “The Empire of Japan demands that you blah blah blah…” Shouldn’t the Japanese guy be giving the terms?! In Japanese?! Considering the battle is By and For Japan??

But Horrywood, we are just dumb American audience. Prease do not confound us with re-ar-ity. Er.. re-al-ity.

Arso, not so good at reading rittle words at bottom of screen. Prease minimize text!

Lordy.

-

One last thing:

I have good news. I just found out that I can save a lot of money on car insurance by switching to Geico.

No, seriously.

I’ve been getting hammed.

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Lords of the Ring is a secret that we cannot contain any longer.

We are, it is true, 2004′s first and foremost Tolkien-inspired progressive rock band.

And this may very well cause not just Emerson, not just Lake, and not just Palmer, but Emerson AND Lake AND Palmer, to eat their hearts out.

Matt & I finished this yesterday. Once you get past the goofiness of the concept, it’s a pretty song.

Today was my first solid day back in the office in about nine weeks, I think. That shows how busy I’ve been. Yeah.

My boss gave me a big raise that I wasn’t expecting, and he told me to not bother coming into the office over the next several weeks, if I don’t feel like it. That I should stay home and catch up on myself.

Well, if that’s some kind of attempt to make me complacent and get me to reconsider changing jobs, then, well, I’m listening.

Actually, he completely understands my thinking, because he used to do exactly what I do, and he said he did it for four years and then he’d had enough, just like me.

He is just pushing to get me to take a different job within the company, rather than quit and go somewhere else. And I’d like that too, if I had geographical choices that I could appreciate. But I don’t think I do.

But, I guess that they aren’t in any hurry, and neither am I.

One thing’s for sure: I’ll never have another boss as cool as the one I’ve got now.

–

I have jogged two days in a row. This has not happened since Varsity Soccer, or something else that was beyond eons ago. But my cheat is, I finally figured out that I don’t have to run three miles, or even one, to benefit from the exercise. No, sir. I am decrepped and out of shape, and once around the block is enough for me. But it makes me exhausted and my legs are aching, so there is good that is being done.

–

Here are two MP3′s by that band that I talk so much about.

Burn Bright

Bend the Light

I played the new CD in the car today, and I played it loudly, and I took longcuts to hear all of it. I like it more and more, the more I hear it. Just the aural landscape of it is a complete monster. The sound is so Big. I get a kick out of it, because I’m saying that as a fan of music, and not as a guy who’s got a lot of cash invested in it. Which is a great sign.

–

I pulled my quadrocep ten years ago, and it still hurts, when I exercise it. That’s probably a bad thing.

Also, I think I have a cavity.

And also also, I have a craving for tomato soup, so that’s what I’m going to have.

I am having to retire my shtick.

I’m sorry about pretending to have shameful emotions. If I seemed sensitive at all, it was a charade. I’m sorry.

In truth, negative self-examination, or self-reflection, is unjustified, non-constructive, and therefore deplorable.

I am really only ever acceptably happy and unintrospective. Which is obvious. There’s no reason not to be.

I mean, I guess I thought it was harmless, since it was only an internet shtick anyway. Anyone who has ever met me in person knows that I’m devoid of sensitivity and emotion. But yeah, I confess, I pretended to be occassionally shamefully sensitive because I thought it might increase my odds of getting laid, or I thought it might help with fooling my victims into thinking I was weak and disoriented.

Alas, years of occassional feigned despair have brought No such fruits, and have only caused irreparable shame, to myself and those who are sometimes seen with me.

I am truly sorry, or as sorry as I can be while only being able to feel a hazy completeness.

That said, I cannot hide my true self any longer. My sunshine and bravado have yearnings of their own.

I am going to start immediately.

–

Today I saw a dog. It chased a ball and was having fun. We did not know the dog.

We threw a frisbee. I had fun playing with my friends and the frisbee. I was not so good at throwing the frisbee, but I am somehow important and happy.

If the ice cream truck would have come, I would have bought an ice cream cone. I would have eaten the ice cream cone. I wish the ice cream truck would have come.

Today I listened to a record with music on it. It was fun. It made me happy.

Today I found more poison ivy on my arm. I hope it does not spread bad. But even if it does, it will be all right because it is only a physical dilemma and there is no reason to get upset. I will use bleach and razor blades. It will be fun.

Today I also petted a cat. It was a pretty cat. The cat was tired and yawned a lot.

Tonight I am doing some laundry. It is not very fun, but I need to do it anyway.

Tomorrow I am going to read a book called Vulcan Psychology For Dummies, and then after that I am going to tape my new Vin Diesel poster on the wall. I hope it sticks.

Mmmmm, cookies.

So I decided to do this record label thing, and a little over a year later, there are these boxes and boxes full of shiny, pretty CD’s.

I really have a record label.

Woah.

And the band is Shockwave Rider, and their record is fantastic.

And my god, it is priced to Move. Heh.

Pinch us so we know we’re not dreaming. Except, instead of pinching, go to the Tired Orbit website and click on the Paypal button and order you up one. That’ll work even better than pinching. Plus I can find out if I set it up right.

If anyone knows any radio stations and magazines and websites and record shoppes and other places where we can proliferate and get the word out, please don’t hesitate to let me know. There is a special place in my heart for people like you.

I can’t get over how professional-looking it looks. And sounds!

Woah.

Oh, here’s the tired orbit website, in case it has eluded you up til now.

Under the circumstances, I feel behooved to go for a run. That almost never happens.

Have a good day.

Soaped myself three times, today, in the shower. THREE TIMES YEAH THAT’S RIGHT.

I am trying to curb any potential for the poison ivy. I get shivers just thinking about the possibility of poison ivy. On top of the one-thousand ninety-three mosquitoe bites I’m dealing with from last week, I would not like batches of poison ivy, Sam I Am.

When I was a young boy, poison ivy ravaged my tight little body so many times beyond countability. Poison ivy vapors would rise off the surfaces of gleaming leaves of poison ivy, and intersperse with the summer air, and the wind would blow microscopic droplets of poison ivy past the short-sleeved skin of a young boy named Tim, who was busy attending to the latest Autobots vs. Decepticons battle in the backyard, (the event of the summer!) and the droplets would apparently get tired and rest on Tim’s arm, and then decided that Tim’s arm was a comfortable arm, and besides the droplets were burnt out on life on the road, and they needed a place to settle down, and maybe if they kept searching, they would never find an arm or skin as hospitable as this arm and this skin, and so they stayed, and they dug in.

I would have a small rash as I went to bed, and by the next night, my arms and thighs and calfs and biceps and triceps and forearms and wrists and neck and face and stomach would be covered in oozing, vile disease. And Kris would also be wrecked, probably worse.

And my mother would be at her wit’s end with the coming of this unjustified onslaught, and she would cover us in cortisone cream and wrap us in gauze and bandages, like mummies, head to toe, and the lengths of the arms, only leaving the fingers exposed. I felt like a monster and it was definitely soul-scarring.

My old poison ivy episodes might be the reason why I am the shitty and worthless human being that I am. I am not scared to point that finger.

I guess you could say I was hyper-allergic. But it got better, as I got older.

But anyway, the reason I wanted to preclude the poison ivy so badly today, is that I was out wading in it, “geo-caching” with Lisa and a Marine named Wayne. I’m still not too clear on the definitive personal fulfillment of “geo-caching”, but it gave me a good reason to explore parks and wooded areas that I’ve never been to.

Basically, geo-caching is treasure-hunting (for crappy treasures, btw) with GPS modules. People have logged in the coordinates of treasures that they have hidden from here to Timbuktu, and you get out your GPS module, and you punch in the coordinates, and you charter a ship, or a plane, or your shoes and magic stick, and you go looking for the little treasure, and when you find it, I guess that you can let other people know that you found it, and they can be proud of you. And by the way, you use a GPS module. Which neither Lisa nor I own.

ENTER WAYNE.

Wayne is not a crazy Marine, who would offer to snap your friend’s neck to show you how it’s done, or who would kiss Kevin Spacey in the driveway in the rain. Wayne is a normal everyguy type Marine. If your dad was in the Marines for twenty-five years, he would be like Wayne. Wayne said he wrote to Bill O’Reilly about Iraq, because Bill O’Reilly is dumb. Wayne’s reason was not “Bill O’Reilly is dumb”, and in fact he had elaborated on the precise reason, but I don’t remember what it was, and I know from my own experience that Bill O’Reilly is dumb, so I am going to make “Bill O’Reilly is dumb” Wayne’s reason for writing to Bill O’Reilly, for the sake of brevity in this post of mine.

Wayne was the man with the plan, and the GPS, and he didn’t mind letting us come along with him.

So we foraged the underbrush in the parks that line the James River. Lisa and Wayne each found two or three caches. I didn’t find any. For all of my schlepping through poison ivy and mud and branches and weeds, I came up empty. I did find a ratty baseball and a piece of quartz, though.

I guess that, at the end of the day, and this is the end of the day, that I’m tired of the great outdoors for awhile.

–

Even now, after scrubbing myself clean, getting into fresh clothes, I have spotted a small patch of bubbling skin at the first knuckle of my right thumb, and this cannot be good.

And also, I’m kind of in a sad mood all of a sudden, and I don’t know why again. There’s something about staring into space that gets me down.

I should go somewhere, and I should let it be anywhere.

This is finally the start of my big wide-open summer, and I’m completely stumped on what to do with it.

I hope you’re all okay. Goodnight.

So I packed up all of my things and I left Illinois behind, I left the hotel room and the small town at 3:00AM because I had to be on a plane leaving St. Louis by 6.

I saw the St. Louis arch for the first time, driving by it very fastly, at about 4:30.

I think that was my last one, my last assignment. Now I can say that that’s over and done with, I think. I’m not sure what happens now, but I’m not going to even try to think about it for awhile. Not until Monday, at the very least.

Sleeping on the planes, desirous for one of those cushions that wraps around the neck for support. Not thinking about anything, or else halfdreaming of things I don’t recall. Reading a book about the guy who invented geology, when my eyes were open. Mountains where the oceans used to be, mollusk fossils encased in sedimental stone. Layers of time that gave away the Earth’s age, and refuted the Christian notion that the whole world was only 6,000 years old. He didn’t want to, though.

Mold floating in the leftover coffee, when I got home. It’s the first time I’ve seen mold in coffee since that one job I had, in downtown Rochester, and the guy came back from vacation, and we were both in the office kitchen, and he was rinsing out the cup he’d left his pre-vacation coffee in, and I was an awkward kid trying to joke with him about the mold that was floating in it, and then a week or two later he left his minivan in neutral and got out the driver’s side and his wife was the passenger screaming all the way down the precipice, and I guess he is in jail.

I guess that moldy coffee stirs up disturbing memories, so usually I make sure to always dump any leftover coffee down the drain, and wash out the pots and cups, and squirt some liquid soap into them and fill them up with hot water.

I think that I’ll try to take a nap now, since I am home and I have a comfortable sofa calling my name (but oddly, using my surname only…), and with records playing in the background, maybe I will put on the Moonmadness record, with the endless groove cut into the end of side B, giving a forever-drone to the fade out of “Lunar Sea”. I think that this is the Friday afternoon that it was made for.

Apparently, it can happen.

–

I keep meaning to tell about how I found out about water towers the other day, and how they’re there to be tall and to have a lot of water high in the air and to push down very hard on the rest of the water in the pipes of the town and hence to give pressure to your faucets. The information and scientific explanations are readily available if you are looking for them, but I never did so I figured it out on my own and it only took not even three decades.

OK, so we’ll get this much straight:

A hike does not equal a nature walk.

I think I did always know that, but I could have used a reminder today.

Because today I decided to go to the Shawnee National Forest, and “hike” the Little Grand Canyon. I was somehow figuring on a nature walk. Manmade paths, easy-glide terrain, perhaps lampposts and cute little ropes strung from ballasts, lining the paths.

HAha!

Well, first of all, I was in short sleeves and shorts, with a severe lack of deet. I was absolutely ravaged by mosquitos. I was not able to look up and take in scenery most of the time, because I was scanning my limbs for insect landings, and always finding at least one, and so smacking and rubbing and swatting the entire time.

A severe lack of deet! There’s no telling when the malaria, lime disease, west nile, tuberculosis, skincancer, HIV, and typhoid fever will kick in. Hopefully, not all at the same time. I should probably skin (verb) myself, to get all this doomed dermacellulose separated from my circulatory system.

But anyway.

The first half-mile or so was a leisurely nature trail, just like I’d expected.

THEN ALL OF THE SHITS HIT THE FANS.

The manmade nature trail ended at a precipice, which looked out over the canyon/valley thing, which really wasn’t all that impressive, really. It was nice enough and all, but. Well, here, see?

But from here, there were two footworn paths. One through overgrown flowery bushes fulled with Bees (Buzzing Bees), and the other just into mosquitoriddenforest, and I took the latter, because I did not wish to add angry Buzzing Bees to the cloud of insects that trailed my every step.

And I walked the first latter path, and after not too long there were two more paths, so I chose one, and down that path there were two more paths, and I chose one, and.. Do you see where I’m going with this? Can you sense the potential for Madness?

Yes… Well…

Soon enough, I found myself schlopping through and across muddy streams, slipping on slippery rockses, pulling my legs through bramble bushes, climbing over large fallen trees, fending off mosquitos by trying to run. (I had figured out that I could fool the mosquitos by standing still, and making them think that they had me dead to rights, and then ALL OF A SUDDEN i would bolt, and the mosquitos would be all like “where’d that yummy dude go?” and the other thousand mosquitos would be all like “shucks, ya got me, boss…”, but then of course there are another million mosquitos waiting, yonder down the pathway, waiting waiting in the wings for a bloodtruck to go by, and they’d be all like “hey, look everybody! there’s Tim the bloodtruck! let’s have a taste!”)

And so then I had to take all of the pretty photographs, which I had planned to take from a standing still position, instead from a running position, meaning not still. Here’s one!

And before much longer than that, of course, I was completely and hopelessly lost. I had lost all traces of paths, big or small. I was panting heavily, because I am in pathetic physical conditioning, and I had no water, and I had no food, and I was hazy from the loss of blood, and I wasn’t even letting myself think about any scenario involving blair witches, or any other scariness.

Then I remembered: I used to be a little person of the woods. I spent half of my childhood in the wilderness. I grew up in trees and streams and underbrush. Why am I so terrible at dealing with all of it, now? Could it be because I never left the confines of roads, parking lots, or well-hewn lawns after turning fifteen or so?

Yes, I guess maybe that was the reason..

But I did know that the sun was in the southwestern sky, and I knew which way the little streams were running. I knew I had to go northeast and upwards. And oh, the climbing of mountainsides, the sliding of muds, the grasping at saplings, pulling myself up 75-degree gradients with my little little biceps, my mouth droolings pooling into the rocks that hovered more often a foot or less beneath my lips, the exhaustion, the weight of a thousand mosquitos on my back, sucking me dry through my sweatsoaked shirt.

I was in Vietnam.

I wondered then: “Is this a ‘nature walk’, or is this Vietnam?” “Do people really put ‘hiking’ as a leisurely interest in their match dot com profiles? Do they really dig this? Do they think they are a naturely martyr?”

I had climbed up and down like two streamfingers, or mini-canyons, or the equivalent of 200 feet up and 200 feet down, 200 feet up and 200 feet down, hilltop to stream, hilltop to stream. I was finding nothing.

I almost panicked. I had my cellphone and I had two bars, amazingly, so I was about to call someone and have them call the Shawnee Forest Rangers, so that they might comb the forests for my skeleton, to avoid establishing a precedent that mountain lions and bears can depend on having dead humans to munch on every now and then. Plus, I would want a proper Heathen Burial.

But I did not place a call. I kept a-walking, and I pulled myself through some of the heaviest brambles I had ever seen, much to the chagrin of my inner ten-year-old, who knew a whole lot better than that.

But I found a tractor path, and I chanted hallelujahs, and I followed it in my heavy paces and my exhaust-rotted head, and it went through somebodys backyard, and I hoped that they would not come out the backdoor with a shotgun, and they did not, and I walked through their yard to the road, and I chanted hallelujahs, and I found my way back to the nature walk entrance, and the parking lot, and my lovely, lovely beautiful saviour of a rental car, and I got in and cranked the air conditioning, and I was three mosquito bites shy of needing a blood transfusion, and I raised my weak fists at the forest full of its mother fucking mosquitos, and I shook the fists, and I seemed to holler “I will become an evil mogul, one day, and I will come back and raze you to the ground, every last one of you, and I will blanket you in asphalt, and in your last few moments you will know the venoms of my determined curse!”

But then I got a big cold gatorade at the gas station and I felt better and I took it all back, the things I’d said.

Of course, I had also dressed myself as if I was going out shopping, or out with friends to Red Lobster or something, but definitely not for hiking. I decided to take a status photo of at least the knees and down, to give an idea to others who go into this nature-walking thing too lightly.

Be you warned, ye treader of sidewalks and soft carpeting.

Mother Nature is invaluable, but she is also a goddamned bitch.