Across the Pass

This is how it goes - one minute you're on top and the next minute you're tumbling down, your butt a bruise, your head smashing ground. Unfortunately, there is no beginning or end to this story. It just keeps going, never knowing when to stop and grasp a limb for life.

I just had a thought about old people. For me, the idea of old people arrives early every morning and does not leave until the wee hours of night. Maybe this is a problem, though. It is not a Harold and Maude like problem, but more of a thought-consumption problem. With my mind so worried about the important old people in my life perishing, I leave little room to worry about the important young people in my life diminishing.

I hit my head hard last night on a frozen mountain and my first thought was - I could die. I'm 23 and I could die so damn easily. Perhaps at the same time, my friend and my mom's best friend's daughter was smashing her head against a steering wheel on an icy road in Michigan - an accident that has has left her unconscious and on a ventilator. Perhaps at that same time last night, my older brother was drinking himself to death, again. As I tried to go to sleep last night to the sound of drunken teammates stumbling back-and-forth across the living room, I could only think of the old people. They are those who have made it through the relentless pulse of this punishing life. I myself am tired. I am tired. I honestly believe that I do everything that I can in this life. Sometimes I mess-up, but I am human. I moved 3000 miles away and I still cannot sleep, because of drunken stumbling. I still awake to the stale smell of beer and phone calls from my mother. In the youthful chambers in my mind, I wish I could be upstairs, drinking and laughing and just being a "normal person." I suppose this is the life I have been given, so all I can do is continue to push forward until I can no longer stand. I might go to Belize or Nicaragua, but it's never going to stop and I guess that's okay for now.

Recession Depression

It's all over my iGoogle headlines - Detroit is facing a recovery deadline after seeing the worst sales for January in 26 years. My home state is crumbling and I am in a coffee shop 3,000miles away in a town that is also crumbling. Perhaps it is true that the entire country is in a recession, but I seem to enjoy living in the eyes of the storms. Everyday I hear the children quite bluntly blurt, "We ain't got no money my Dad's in jail and my Mom's on crack ."

This is the world we are living in. A world in which we can only call ourselves bad asses for so long, before we just fall apart and starve or get the shit kicked out of us for uncontrollable circumstances. Sometimes it seems to me that everyone is against everyone. Sure it is a dog eats dog world, but what happens when there is only one dog left and all of the other pups are bleeding and howling in the streets. Am I exaggerating the current state? Sure I am...and that's all I have to say on that topic.

Biking down Skate Creek

After packing up my belonging shortly post graduation from university, I moved to the rustic, dangerous, and rural mountain community of Packwood. In the spirit of Alexander Supertramp, I thought of myself, just five short months ago, as a bit of a super tramp, myself. Now, as I sit comfortably in my bed, my space heater on high and a head of cabbage to my right, I feel as though I may have exaggerated things in my head. Perhaps this is not roughing it as I previously thought...or is it?

Biking down Skate Creek Road is always quite a cathartic experience and sometimes an educational somersault. On my return to town, I noticed the case of a compact disc left absent and lonely on the roadside. Breaks. Turn around. Pick it up. That was my mistake - picking it up. Someone once told me that upon picking up a piece of litter, it becomes your property and thus your responsibility. I looked at the CD case and wanted so desperately to drop it. A Tribute to Toby Keith. Who would tribute the Boot in Your Ass guy? Probably the evil doers themselves as a thank you to Toby for making Americans look like even bigger douche bags. I opened up the case and found it empty, meaning the CD is still out there, probably in a large truck with a Confederate flag sticker and window decal that says something like, "Get a Lift. Fat Chicks Can't Jump." The dude who drives a rig as described is just the type of classy fellow who would buy a Toby Keith tribute album and those men are a dime a dozen in these parts. I peddled to the post office and threw the case in the trash can. Maybe I am not a super tramp, but I am a super person.

-C McCan'tless