Weirdos on the road

Mike (not his real name) is a flabby grizzled aging man with no front teeth and a cute roly-poly dog named Roxie. I met Mike and Roxie this morning at Buffalo Park. He's parked his 26-foot Class C RV in the gravel strip outside the main parking lot for the past month or so. I don't know if he ever leaves, because I come and go. Everytime I've been to the park, he's been there. 

Today as I was changing out of my walking shoes into my sandals, I saw him pull out a doormat and a folding chair. He placed them outside the open side door, took off his shirt, displaying flab and a drooping chest, and sat in the chair, soaking up some nice healthy high-index UV rays. Rock music blasted from somewhere inside. A short-legged fat brown dog laid down on the rug beside him.

Pretty soon, his dog got a stick from inside the RV and begged him to throw it. Because I was parked just a few yards away, I went over to say hello to his dog. That's when he told me his dog's name was Roxie. 

Roxie brought the stick to me to throw. I did my best and ended up almost putting Mike's eye out. Good thing he caught it. I was never much good at softball, although we won City Champs when I was in seventh grade, no thanks to me.

Anyway, Mike obviously hadn't spoken to anyone in a while. I recognized the symptoms of social isolation, because I feel them myself. Even though it soon became obvious that Mike was a jerk and a crook, I still enjoyed the interchange. I kept listening, and he kept talking while we took turns throwing the stick for Roxie. 

Married with kids, divorced from his addict wife, who got cancer and died two months later, after he'd had to sell his house and all his toys. Camarillo, CA, I think he said, even though he has Georgia plates on his RV. 

"I used to be a landscaper and an electrician until 2008, when all the work dried up and I got behind in my bills."

I made some sympathetic noises. 

"I had the best front yard in the neighborhood. I designed and landscaped it all myself. I paid for it by padding my clients invoices. I had a smart taxman. You can get away with anything if you put your mind to it."

I felt compelled to respond with some inanity about living with myself at the end of the day. He displayed no chagrin.

"Where you going next?" I asked.

"Back to Georgia to help someone with some work, and then I think I'll head back to California. After that, Idaho. I want to do some fishing."

I thought to myself, wow, a true nomad. 

"I'd really like to meet a woman," he said, "but all the ones I meet just want to know how much you make, what you got. Nowadays, instead of asking what you like to do, you ask, how many prescriptions pills do you take, what ailments do you have. I met a couple cougars. They just wanted to know how much I was worth."

I clucked my tongue in sympathy. "Have you ever been to Quartzsite in the winter?"

"To the swap meet?"

"Yeah, and to the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. You might meet a nice nomad woman there. Kindred spirits and all that."

He looked interested. 

After 15 minutes, I was feeling the heat. The clouds had moved aside, and relentless sun was blazing on my neck. I checked my watch. The mall opened at 11:00 a.m.  

Clouds have persisted the past couple days, which means solar has been iffy. I left the forest this morning to charge up the power station that runs my fridge. Now I'm at my favorite table in the mall, watching parents stroll past with their manic children and listening to old pop music echoing in the rafters. Not old by my standards. Depeche Mode seems like just yesterday.

I need some road friends. I'm sure there are some non-weirdo nomads out there on the road. Creative people who aren't jerks or crooks. I'm trying to be more outgoing. I'll sift big timber until I find them.

The Chronic Malcontent cautiously connects

Happy holidays, Blogbots. May you have as much joy as you can stand during this stupid, cold, virus-infested, consumer-obsessed season. I'd like to turn the page on 2021 and forget it happened. Then I remember I said the same thing last year, trying desperately to escape 2020. I guess it proves the truism, wherever you go, there you are. Circumstances surround me like a cloud of stinky holiday farts. I can think of some other so-called truisms: You can run but you can't hide. Life sucks and then you die. Buy now and pay later. Whoops, no, not that one.

Speaking of whoops, yesterday I connected with a woman who worked for me in the late 1980s, back when I was suffering with a ten-year-long entrepreneurial seizure that almost killed me. I ran a small business making some things I really hated to make, which is not a business model I would recommend to anyone wanting to be self-employed. This woman, I'll call her Marty, was younger than me but just as opinionated about just about everything, especially about the existence of God. 

We argued daily as we worked shoulder-to-shoulder. She liked making the things, evidenced by her annoyingly relentless optimism. I hated making the things, evidenced by my chronic malcontentedness. At the time, it didn't occur to me that her positive outlook on the work, well, really, on life in general, might have something to do with her spiritual philosophy. She thought God was everywhere, and I thought God did not exist. We never figured it out. Thirty years later, I'm still working on it. 

About a year ago, Marty started following me on Instagram. She used a pseudonym so it took me a while to figure out who she was. For the past year, most days, she's posted videos and images stolen from other people into the direct messenger space. Never once has she actually written anything, like Hi, remember me? Finally, I realized that her messages were sent only to me—duh, direct messages. They weren't generic posts that anyone could see. She was trying to connect, without actually connecting. 

Maybe her goal was not to connect but to annoy. If that was the case, she had succeeded. Her incessant posting of inane weirdo videos forwarded from other weirdos penetrated my Instagram fog. 

I messengered her: Hey! Why don't you ever say anything to me? 

Marty wrote back immediately: I wasn't sure you would want to talk to me.

I wrote: I'm always happy to reconnect with old friends.

Marty: You can never be sure. Some people don't like it. 

That comment made me think her Instagram experience was nothing like mine.

Me: Would you like to talk sometime?

Marty: How about now?

In a few minutes, we had figured how to have a video call on Instagram and were seeing each other in real time. To me, that was the triumph of the day, mastering a live video call on Instagram. The pleasure I felt at reconnecting with an old friend faded quickly once I realized she was still a crazy wackjob. I was all about the video call. Social media, you will not defeat me.

Marty's face appeared below mine on my phone screen. She looked the same to me, or rather, she resembled what I remembered of her after thirty years, except her long thick hair, formerly dark brown, was now completely white. She wore bangs across her forehead and thick black-rimmed glasses. Behind her I could see the typical chaos of a creative person's space. She turned her phone and gave me a quick dizzying tour of the mess. Once again, I thanked my lucky stars that I have so few possessions. 

Marty: I'm working for [Name of a person I should have remembered but didn't]. I'm one of twenty assistants. The holidays have been weird. I have a big family. They are all Democrats. 

Me: [To myself] Uh oh, should I have seen that coming?

Marty: Yeah, I'm not vaxxed or any of that stuff. My family can't stand that I'm a conservative Republican so I can only hang out with my two nieces. 

Me: Yeah, the holidays can be difficult.

After that, I let her talk while I examined my long teeth on the video screen. Long in the tooth is a real thing. I practiced tossing my head back so my jowls didn't stand out so prominently. Then I noticed my chicken gizzard neck, and dropped my chin. My chin receded into the distance and my nose took over the screen. Meanwhile Marty yammered on about her skin cancer challenges. 

Marty: I don't trust the regular doctors so I'm going to a guy. He's given me some stuff to put on it. If it reacts, then I know there's cancer. If it doesn't react, then it's okay. 

Me: [To myself] Oh boy, sounds like hydrogen peroxide. Is that a treatment for skin cancer these days? Who knew? Maybe we could have avoided sending Mom to the dermatologist during the pandemic. I cringed mentally as I recalled laying waste to the clinic's bathroom in my futile attempts to clean up after Mom's fecal meltdown. Get behind me, 2020!

Marty: [Probably sensing my mind was elsewhere] Well, it was really good to see you. 

In that one statement, everything about our future interactions was spelled out. She will keep sending me stupid videos I never look at, and maybe she will direct message me occasionally now that she knows I'm okay with it, and we will never connect by video again. 

Once again, I'm chagrined (and relieved) at how carefully I've set my boundaries to exclude wackjobs, past and present. Is that a good thing? I don't know. I know it's good to see things through other people's eyes sometimes, but how can I have a meaningful conversation with someone who can't, won't, refuses to . . . you know, care about the common good? I know I can't change her mind, any more than she could change mine. Two planets. We are in a race to see whose planet will survive. I'm not optimistic.