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Miss Carol and me have been having a time lately with our moms.

I’d love to say I’m this tough guy that doesn’t care, that scorns softness and fragility, that says- hey it’ll work itself out, that grabs another beer and pushes out down to the beach and gazes fondly out at the bikini babes tanning in the late afternoon sun whilst sipping suds and thinking blandly.

I long to be that guy.

I do.

But I can’t.

So, yeah.

Miss Carol and me’s moms are having differing and probably progressively downward spiraling problems that will, I am sure, chew into my heart and what little free time I might have dreamed of having.

But, ya know?, I love them both.

So as much as I want to be the frothy-beer-swilling-bikini-watching-total-denial-thingy-dude?

I just can’t.

I was sitting and whispering to myself that I was working and that I was actually getting something done, when Tug came into the Me Only Room and plopped down.

I swiveled to face him.

So, he said.

Tug’s always deep and solemn and he looked at me deeply and solemnly and said- you gonna do this?  And he shifted from paw to paw.

Do what, I said.

You gonna take this tractor trailerin’ course and leave us? he said.

Don’t seem right he said.

And then he sat. Waiting. Panting slightly and looking around like dogs do.

Dude, I said, I’m not going anywhere. I’m just trying to think ahead. I’m just thinkin’ it might not be a good idea to get my CDL.

Hmmm he growled shifting and focusing.

Have you thought this through? he asked.

Whaddya mean? I asked Tug.

He paused and licked himself and then he said is this escapism?

And I said in a small voice. Maybe.

He stood up and shook himself out and said- you’re a turd.

And then he ambled off.

This is gonna sound terribly politically incorrect but nice is wearing thin on me.

Not the nice of friends and family. Not the heartfelt goodness that wells up from the people you hold dear.

I’m talkin’ about the forced ceramic-glass-like nice imposed by banks and gas stations and grocery store owners.

The “How are you today, my name is whatever, and I’ll be helping you today and holding your hand through the scary bank deposit you’re making and can I possibly do anything else for you while I flash fake smiles and seem actually interested in your life and your day” kinda niceness.

Implants are less false.

I find myself yearning for more humaness. A yawn, a stifled groan, a muttered fuck you would be preferable to all this glossy vacuousness.

It’s ok to fart, people.

Yeah.

So I made the decision.

There are lots and lots of pros and cons and there was lots and lots of overthinking the whole thing.

But when it comes right down to it- I wanna do it. I want to drive these big motherfuckers.

And I don’t know why. I just wanna.

So I’m gonna.

Dudes this is just fucking magic.

I know. I know. My credibility withers daily but this is the best shit I’ve read in a long, long time.

Don’t get me wrong.

There were times when I was reading The Tiger’s Wife wondering why I was.

Miss Carol would look at me and go- do you like that book?

And I’d go, no?

‘Cause I wasn’t sure. It was cool and really well written, but I just wasn’t getting it.

And then it all clicked.

Like a smooth bore sliding home it slid in.

And it’s fricking magic.

Whew.

So, yeah. This was pretty much my holiday weekend.

Is it any wonder I didn’t post on Monday?

Is it any wonder I’m barely posting now?

More as short term memory coalesces. Or re-coalesces. Or whatever.

Decades and centuries ago I told my granny that I was thinking of driving dynamite across to the Eastern Shore.

Ooooh, stop, she twittered (back when twittering was something different) and patted my hand affectionately and told me she loved me and smiled up at me like grannies do.

But I was. Seriously thinking about it, I mean.

But then the years and years and years zipped by in gale force winds while I did other things.

But then.

In the last coupla months the dream has somehow re-kindled and taken root. And now its gnawing obsessiveness is becoming a siren song, something I’m not sure I can ignore much longer.

Dudes, I’m thinkin’ about getting my CDL and driving a tractor trailer. Not local, and maybe not long haul, but, yeah, maybe long haul. I know me. I could never drive local, and regional might be a stretch boring-wise, but, man the long haul lure is there and the hook is tight.

Escapism as epiphany, ya know?

I meant to talk to Miss Carol about this again tonight and break it to her, but it was her birthday and we did other stuff and I forgot so she’ll probably read this instead.

Ooooohh. That’ll be fun.

Granny’s grinning.

So I was sitting there, brooding darkly.

I’d just finished reading a really good book, quite possibly the best book I’ve ever read, and as I sat, thinking about it (the book I mean) I watched some little dramas play out.

The surf was head high and glassy so all the surfers were out. I love watching their gracefulness but I don’t harbor any awe. I mean, ANYBODY can surf. Hell, even I can surf.

sorta.

OK. I suck, and maybe I should be in awe. But I’m not.

But while I was sitting and mulling I saw two girls, obviously BFF’s, on longboards out beyond the break, talking. Suddenly, one of the girls slipped into the water to wet her hair and in one long gorgeously lithesome move came back up out of the ocean and sat on her board like she was sitting on a chair. While she kept up her conversation with her friend she slowly wrung the saltwater from her hair. It was mermaidic and simply beautiful.

They paddled in and I cracked another beer and a young couple, kids really, came and sat near us. They were unremarkable in their plainness, their ordinariness, except for the girl’s remarkable desire. While her boyfriend/lover/husband/whatever/ relentlessly fucked with his iPhone, her want, her need, for him to pay attention to her, to somehow validate and return the bruising rawness of her love for him was hard to watch.

When they were leaving, he handed her his precious iPhone and she nervously dropped it in the sand.

I went for a swim, I couldn’t stand it any more.

When I got back and sat down the wind had changed direction and strengthened. It was blowing more off the water and it was getting a little chilly. Miss Carol and me were fixing to head home when a kite blew by.

Honest, dudes, I’ve never seen anything like it. The kite was flying all by itself, trailing a couple hundred yards of string- it’s little plastic hand thingie bouncing over the waves. I watched it out of sight. It was forlorn looking. I felt bad for it. It seemed lost.

So I said fuck this and stood up and collapsed the chairs and picked up the cooler of empties and as we were breaking camp, a couple walked by, hand in hand. She was a little too fat or maybe a little too pregnant to be wearing a bikini and he was fluourescently sunglass wrapped, gold chain luggingly his mid-life crisis over the waistband of his too-touristy board shorts.

And as they walked past I saw that he(?) had a tramp stamp(?)

Jesus.

C’mon.

Grainy, crappy, photo aside- I did the thumb ring thingy.

I love the look but it’s been garnishing some askances in amongst the burly types I work with.

I know, I know.

In the gay community a ring on the right thumb means you’re single and available.

But I’m not gay nor single nor even available. So it’s just a ring, right?

And, hey, honestly?, if a bunch of gay guys want to hit on me I’d find it flattering ’cause ain’t none of that gonna be happening and who doesn’t like to be popular? Shit, I’ll play cock tease. (did I just say that?)

So it’s been different.

I’ve gotten some really interesting looks from the women I work with and been treated to some really strange vibes from the guys I work around.

Hmm.

All ’cause a stupid ring on my thumb.

Sometimes this shit makes me want to laugh out loud.

Tourons is a word I wished I’d made up. But I didn’t. It’s the marriage of tourist and moron and pretty much describes the shit we gotta put up with every summer.

Schools are out and the influx of Tourons is full bore. Like ticks in weeds they’re suddenly frickin’ everywhere.

I was wrestling the dickheads around on our walk the other day when an especially cacophonously dressed crowd of Tourons went by. (What is it about neon and tourons? I mean, really?)

And it got me thinking in broadly stroking generalizations about the Tourons. You know, broad strokes like, as in, Mexicans are REALLY good gardeners? That kinda shit.

Touron Trashing Time.

Sorry, if you don’t want to revel in this, please tune out, OK?

So I was gazing at the cacophonousness and I was all like-Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania seems to host the most neon covered folks who eat at, like 5 o’clock?, and move in a caravan of vehicles, carefully following one another to their destination and tipping a dollar. Miss Carol knows this- a dollar is a BIG thing to Pennsylvanians.

New York is a huge state full of people but New York is framed and detained by New York City. Zoo Yorkers are amazingly loud and outlandishly friendly IF they like you. Lots of gold chains and fake tans and huge tips. Zoo Yorkers will tip you for weather info.

West Virginians are, like, from another planet? I don’t get them at all.

New Jersey is New York’s quiet little wallflower sister that you maybe don’t want to wake up?

Maine and all those little chilly places north of bum-fuck? You people are brittle and curt. Maybe it’s the constant cold?

Connecticut has the prettiest women I’ve ever seen outside of California. They are ALL scorchingly beautiful. I’m sure there are places where they keep the ugly girls but, hey, the ones visiting and hanging at our beach are drop dead gorgeous.

North Carolina has the best southern accent I know. And everyone looks like they could kill something and cook it up and make it taste good and make it a party doing it.

Hey, we get tourons from all over the world. And ’cause I’m a local, I get to poke fun at y’all. I’ve seen license plates from as far away as Alaska. (Who would drive from Alaska to Va Beach?)(And why?) But you do. And a part of me, the very little cruel part, is glad you do.

‘Cause you Tourons are endlessly entertaining.

I mean, really.