Wet Canvas Dreams: Something About A Microwave

Having satisfactorily finished my medication and probably my career, I have taken to enjoying the small life I have built here. After sitting on my bed watching the lightning all night I jump up early, say seven or maybe eight. This is not early for the Midwest. I strut around my house, a small ball bouncing off my limbs, whilst I wait for the pan to warm.

Then I sit down on my couch waiting for the eggs to fry, with the radio loudly playing on my knee as I look out the window at the trees across the road and the squirrels doing their stuff. Sometimes I put the radio on in a different room to the one I'm in so I can wonder if there's somebody else in my house. I mean, who
is making all that noise?

This Land Is My Land

I answer my groovy cordless phone and talk seductively on my wicker rocking
chair. Then I walk out onto my porch proudly surveying my land whilst
earnestly conversing away. Typically then I might sit on the porch, eggs in
hand and let my legs dangle over the growingly impressive egg shell pile. I
am hoping to create an egg shell border around my porch. Cheaper than buying
mulch. Much.

Keeping Up Appearances

I spot a neighbour calling a missing dog and fearful of an introduction I retreat back in to my couch and let the radio throb in my lap like a memory. Anti-social I might be but my lawn looks better than theirs. It's an important a part of the culture of suburbia. Hanging baskets, painted window shutters, some large flower pots, a mini trellis perhaps, a rockery over there, a touch of crazy paving here, a bamboo garden would be nice.

Visa for the Harvesting of Vegetables

I could do so much. Melon seeds and those for sunflowers will be planted next month. And probably the carrots and turnips too. Gotta get into red peppers. So easy to grow here I believe. And yellow. Not sure about purple but want to grow them simply because it's funny saying purple peppers. Say it again if you don't believe me. Would probably require legal permission to come back and pick them though. Wonder if the authorities consider harvesting of vegetables as a good reason to return.

Amazing Weekend

After the rather unpleasant or more correctly put, disappointing, week I went ahead and had an amazing weekend.

From a Shade Problem to the Shady Hours

From lunch time Friday I went AWOL with a couple of friends for the day. A drive to relive a brief moment of my cross-country bus trip, a couple of bars, some great food, kids in the playground, beer in the shade (I get leaflets in my mailbox asking me if I have a shade problem in my garden), and then it's the early hours.

Repeat Procedure, Add Kids, Eggs, and Art

Repeat process on Saturday only multiply kids. Stop off at Spanish couple's house to drop off beer and stay for countless hours. Big family, big porch. Great family, great porch. Lot of beer. Art on the walls. Fantastic food. Yet another decadent salad, and the outrage of eating so far beyond hunger. Even eggs after the sun went down. I like eggs. And the kids only tumbled down the concrete steps twice.

For Love Nor Money

Bedtime you might think, for I did. But what the heck a late drink in my local to introduce myself. Met a girl who left her husband because she wasn't ever attracted to him to the extent that they ever just climbed up there on the washing machine and went for it. I said something about a microwave. She said all she wanted now was a lot of me-time. And a lot of money. Faced with such selflessness I told her my legal woes. She said she'd marry me to make me legal. She said she'd do it for a lot of money. I said something about a microwave.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

After five hours sleep I leapt up and cut the grass before the thunderstorms and before the neighbors. God their gardens are starting to look shoddy. Forgetting that my mother won't have got the letter I haven't yet mailed where it outlines the sad series of predicaments I'm facing, I phoned and tried to convince her it wasn't all bad and that in fact I was having a great time. She told me I wasn't supposed to be having a great time; I was supposed to be working. I told her well it wasn't that great a time, but I had been lent a microwave.

Your Car, sir

And then I get a half-hour long-distance call. I'm told by a friend from a band that in time a painting of mine on a CD cover of theirs will make me rich. Do people download CD covers? It was great to talk to someone from home whilst admiring my lawn from my porch. As I press the off button my ride arrives and becomes the first to consume beer in my home.

Art on the Walls

And so to another house, with another huge family, and another huge porch. More art on the walls. And I stopped counting the kids. Sun and beer and quality conversation. This family are so nice they are like the Waltons. Granted Mary Ellen wasn't going out with the doctor any longer, illegitimate kids sprouted up refreshingly (Erin and Jim Bob at least), and Mr and Mrs Walton don't sleep in the same house any more. But in essence that little piece of suburbia is clearly Walton Mountain. Theme music was a bit different though.

All good Weekends Come To An end

On to a bar that won't take my money, to talk of art and jobs, and I have to remind myself that this is not a love song. I mean that this is not a vacation. Technically speaking a weekend should end there in the early hours of Sunday night/Monday morning but I still seemed to be enjoying myself.

Dance And You Shall See The Light

I danced all day Monday in between phonecalls about my future. News was bleak so I kept dancing. And then I had an epiphany. One even better than the one about the arrangement of the wires for plugging the phone in. It was to do with painting and careers. Or doing one and not the other. And things came into focus.

Don't Tell People You Have Seen The Light

So before the final legal consultation I told my friend. I could tell he was
worried about the implications for his mortgage that I was paying, and for his other mortgage that he was paying. So I tried to explain that I wasn't unhappy and told him about the dancing. I could tell he was still worried.

The End Of the World?

Spoke with top attorney in a top firm, and for free. A friend of a sister of a friend of a friend - this is a friendly place. The news wasn't great but unsolicited he did say it wasn't the end of the world. Outside the sky darkened and the world ended.

Assimilation Through Litigation

The attorney was clear on how I could sue my erstwhile employers, and/or get them into huge trouble with the authorities. I said I wanted to focus on myself and my immediate monetary problems. I never mentioned a microwave. At this stage of my life I am too well versed in employment law. The meeting with this $300 an hour man crystallized everything.

On the Run

So all I have to do from here on in is survive. It's more complicated than that but not a whole lot. Starting to identify more and more with Geronimo. On the run from the American authorities whilst trying to live a free and peaceful life. I too
am likely to pop in and out of international borders and am already considering the benefits of killing white people.

Time To Make Income

In short, I can afford to live (but not eat or drink) until the end of the summer. If I make no income before then I'll be returning to 1986. Apart from a fuller head of hair and my obvious good looks it doesn't hold much attraction. I shall fight to stay longer. I shall kill white people.

My Own Melons

For most of the weeks I have been here I have been sick, and the other times preoccupied. I have painted little. After this weekend I begin. Many potential projects in this land of opportunity. And a weekend in a cabin in the mountains in two months. The months ahead shall not be easy - legally I cannot work for anyone until the fall at the earliest, and then subsequent only to being declared a cleansed person. But I knew that coming here and am prepared to give it a go. I mean imagine watching your own melons grow (so to speak).

From here on I shall be painting, looking for money, and approaching a routine of some undefined description.

Or I shall fall in love.