Dallas, TX (so many stars) and Closing

Two nights ago, myself and a gaggle of my best friends got a little decked out, called on the spirits of those who went out smiling, and stepped on bicycle pedals in order to see Neil Young at the Dallas Meyerson Symphony Orchestra center. You can bet your ass that we did it in the only way we know how, but I am not entirely sure "how" that is. We saturated the fun machine to where, I think, even the machine was having a good time. It even seems I was a little sick from the level of enjoyment. No way it was all of the beers, because I have been hung over many times before. Now that I am off to less green (but still intriguing)  pastures, I realize how great it was.

From Neil Mouthfeel Young

Not exactly an accomplishment, but it was a moment to recognize some past accomplishments, as small and insignificant as they may be. Recognize! So, I feel the need to ice a few cakes, to put on the kybosh, or, for the snake who eats his own tail, to finally consume himself completely and vanish. Things are changing, and it starts with this blog. It needs to die, and I can't believe it even lasted this long.

Thank you, all who read this, it has meant a lot to me to hear your comments and to feel your eyes on my scronny, naked spirit. If you don't mind, I am going to continue to behave as if the comments and eyes are still there.


Here is an entirely different website if you need to supplement your old blahg reading habits.

Dallas, TX (star^*)

        The last 3, 4 days, ¿where am I? , have been so wonderfully draining and full of moments that I will not forget. Seven guys set out to set up camp, sit and settle thoughts within themselves in order to set things right with the entire group. We camped by the Morris Sheppard dam, Possum Kingdom Lake, which is an impressive ~50 foot concrete god, displaying a power to hold back the extreme force within the other side of the lake. The area we camped was the low side of the dam, where the Brazos river comes back to life. The valley was decorated with signs that read something like
"WARNING! In the event of a dam release, this area will flood. You will have two minutes to evacuate after the alarm sounds."
         We talked about our procedure for evacuation, but none of it serious. In hind-sight, making it out of the brush and surrounding river in two minutes would have been somewhere between physically unlikely and increasingly doubtful, but I am somehow still altogether certain we would have made it, most of us. The night was full of the kind of merriment you would expect at a "bachelor party" camp out. There were home made beers. There were songs anyone would love to remember, but that no one could possibly contain. There were laughs so hard that our stomachs almost ripped, cigars that make you look cooler than Teddy Pendergrass drinking a milk shake in a snow storm. There were hot dogs.

      Day two. Hang overs mixed with the desperation of friends trying to raise each others' spirits when their own is wimpy and wobbly. As it happens, all we really needed was to get into our canoes and into the glorious cold water, because once we were on the river, the current seemed to pull us straight up from the muck. We paddled, but mostly discussed the best way to paddle, being that none of us are experts. We blocked the sun with all of our might. And we drank beers, but mostly discussed the coming doom that was the empty bottom of the plastic cooler. About midday, we were 3 miles down the river and many beers deep. Seventeen miles to go until we finish, so we will try to camp somewhere along the way. Late in the evening, we were at two-thirds of the way down the river, running out of daylight, and completely out of beer.
       The sun is going down behind the hills, and we did exactly what anyone who was exactly like us would do at that exact moment, we decided to skip camp and paddle to the finish no matter what. We knew we would be traveling through midnight, we knew it would be dark, and we knew it would be troublesome. We were right. Every 10 minutes you were lucky if you had not banked up on a shore, only to have to push yourself back and feel for deeper waters. No sounds, other than all of us trying not to sound a bit frightened. The potential for snakes, and the company of many many flying, biting bugs. We did make it of course, and without any serious repercussions. The canoes were flooded. All of us lost items that we never really needed, and all of us lost even more of what we did not want.