POUR ME ANOTHER ....

[boxcarOkie]

Last night, the wife is following me around, ragging me about an open window on the bus.  The turnpike window is open, it is open for a reason, "it is 108* outside and I don't want to blow the windshields out of the thing, while sitting in the sun.  So I opened a window and a vent."  This has disturbed her balance in the Universe and she feels compelled to tell me about it.

She is disturbed about this window, so she follows me around "commenting" on it.  She is worried it is going to rain, when was the last time that happened, April?  She says a fly is going to get inside.  She has (in her head) a million valid reasons why THAT window ought to be closed and she is determined that I be the one to close it.

And I think two things.

(1)  Why doesn't she close the window?
(2)  I need a drink.

It has been a confusing and somewhat trying week here at the Goat Farm.  Unfortunately, help is not on the way.  I think that guy at the beanery the other day that told me that Jack Daniels Black Label was good for depression might have been pulling my leg or something? 

Drinking isn't all that good for you come to think of it.  Still, why don't addicts stop using when it begins to destroy their lives?  To understand that, we need to look briefly at how the brain's pleasure center functions.  We like to feel good.  We enjoy music, the company of people with whom we feel a connection, good food, a drink now and then, maybe a hit or a line or two.  We enjoy sex, which feels good and satisfies our instinctive desire to bond intimately with another human.  We like to win at sports and other games.
 
We get a thrill when we hunt.  Our survival instincts are deeply involved with the pleasure center, which gives us positive reinforcement for survival-oriented behavior such as making friendships (allies), winning at games (and war), and successful competition in the arena of business.  It pleases us immensely when we enter into the uncommon realm of being lucky.  Kind of like finding a used drop box or a over-sized copper-cored-radiator at a bargain price.

We enjoy these good feelings and emotions for themselves, but they also provide a welcome change from the unpleasant aspects of daily living.  Insurance, taxes, alimony, cable TV, teenagers, the electric company in late August.  Running wire runs under the bus, polishing wheels, stopped up fuel filters, slow-poke Okies on the Interstate,giving an eight mile turn signal, motoring along at a brisk 49 MPH in the fast lane.

Many other activities, such as shopping and gambling, provide pleasure, thrills, and distractions from our humdrum lives.  All of these activities are rewarded by the pleasure center, and eventually we may find that we seek them out too often, or for too long. 

So we drink.

We also imbibe to let go of the fear and anger which imprisons our heart, to relinquish all childish expectations and live joyfully in the world as it is -- not as we wish or imagine it to be, to be free of the always craven and ever-craving ego, to be released from the endless hungers of the body, demands of the job or career.

To see God in others, to see God in everything, to die without really experiencing death and merge our consciousness into the cosmic sea of bliss from which we came.  I drink because in my case, I don't like to wash my bus, I can no longer fill my tank with cheap diesel fuel, find a road that beckons to me that I have never driven or traveled, and last, at days end, my seemingly endless futile search to locate an empty spot at the back of the lot when I tire. 

And of course, I have a turnpike window open on the drivers side in August.

Yeah that's it, that is why I hoist one every now and then, I'll drink to that.

BCO

Possibly Related:  http://boxcarokie.com/2011/04/22/lost-and-adrift/

[DMoedave]

havent seen your blog updated for awhile, good to see your still writing. Always enjoy it. (tape a piece of screen over window that should stop it for 5-10 mins)

[Chopper Scott]

Not to many things do I enjoy more than sitting under the awning and pounding down some cold ones with my freinds. 

[boxcarOkie]

havent seen your blog updated for awhile, good to see your still writing. Always enjoy it. (tape a piece of screen over window that should stop it for 5-10 mins)

Yes, you are right.  It has been awhile. 

I write almost every day but I only post every now and then, if that makes sense?  Having spent a lot of time working on the bus takes away from the writing side of my life and the website, and I have been extrememley busy here the past couple of months. 

So busy ... I don't know whether to wind my butt or scratch my watch ... But then again, I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Thanks for the comment.

BCO

[boxcarOkie]

Not to many things do I enjoy more than sitting under the awning and pounding down some cold ones with my freinds. 

Every now and then I have been known to "toss one" here and there, but I have slowed down considerably.  I just got tired of waking up on someone's floor, in a house I didn't recognize, with people I did not know.

Hello, My Name Is Don, and I am a hopelessly addicted bus nut.

BCO

[artvonne]

  I recall a show about ancient Greece, I think the series was "In seach for the Trojan War". They been digging up stuff all over out there, finding ancient cities and "stuff". In Homers epic tale, at one part he writes about sitting with this Prince dude around a large fire pit, sipping red wine and roasting shishkabobs <sp>.

  So this narrator dude is standing by this recently excavated marble fire pit on the shores of the Mediterranian Sea near the Ancient City of Troy. He's pointing out the large checkered floor tiles, the remains of the large marble collumns that once supported some long lost cieling....what theyve unearthed from seeming eons of time looks amazingly like what was described by Homer, more than 3500 years ago, right down to the location overlooking the Med.

  Sittin round a fire roastin chunks of meat over hot coals, and drinkin. And laughin. Watching the sun set over the sea. Watching pretty girls in dainty dress walk by. 3500 years could just as easily be 35 seconds ago? Some things never really change.

  "Homer! will you please shut that damn tent flap?"