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“….I took pride in being able to carry my worldly possessions and replace them for less than two hundred dollars if necessary.

To wake up by the side of the road somewhere, light a cigarette, and start pondering the decision of whether to set off north, south, east, or west. . .To be sitting in a New York bar and fall prey to a sudden urge to go to Texas, Montana, or Mexico, and be able to leave in the morning without a care-this was my idea of freedom, this was my definition of success in life….”

Wanderlust.

Freedom.

The lure of the open road.

Haven’t we all, at one time or another, dreamed of chucking everything and just going, of seeing the world or maybe just the US, of traveling for the sake of traveling? Of going and never looking back.

That’s the lifestyle that Richard Grant experiences and writes about in his new book. Traveling and living with truckers and road tramps and bullriders and RVers he gets a first hand look at the american nomad. He also delves into some of the history of nomadic travel- you know, Indians and whatnot and while interesting it wasn’t the reason I bought the book.

Originally I was drawn to American Nomads precisely because of it’s promise of living vicariously through some of the uniquely free spirits who choose to call the open road home.

I had thought it was a lifestyle I longed for.

I was wrong.

Maybe I’m too much of a homebody, or maybe, as Richard Grant writes, I just don’t have the personality trait that the wanderers share. Whatever it is, I came away from American Nomads feeling inexplicably sad. Sure, there’s a certain romantic allure to being able to do what you want when you want and go where you want whenever you want.

But.

What they don’t tell you in the glossy dream freedom brochure is how to pay for it and from what I read, unless you’re independently wealthy, or retired and RVing on a budget; life on the road is tough. From road tramps dumpster diving and eating road kill to hoboes riding the rails and stuffing puppies in their sleeping bags to keep warm to bullriders guzzling stolen beer while driving hundreds of miles between rodeos and living in their pickups I found myself having big-time second thoughts about this whole nomadic lifestyle thingie.

So while the book didn’t necessarily tarnish the romantic aspect of being a vagabond, (maybe I just need a sponsor before I go hobo), it provided, for me anyway, an insight that tamped down the allure somewhat.

American Nomads is well worth reading, though. Richard Grant’s great.

Next on oceandoggy’s reading list- Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving.

This is MR.GREEN., our new 2008 Ford F450 diesel duelly crew crab.

Several months ago I started thinking about replacing my current work truck, ol’ Big Black with something newer and more comfortable and while I was at it, something big enough to haul Cutter and Tug on trips longer than 15 minutes.

I think I found it.

Is it stupendously, hugely, overbig? Yup.

Is he diesel guzzle-inly obese? You betcha.

Is he aircraft carrier-like in traffic? Oh yeah, baby.

But.

There’s somethin’ really nice about the feel of a new somethin’ somethin’ wrapped around you. Especially if it’s a BIG somethin’ somethin’

And as I sit in MR.GREEN. in the driveway gazing fondly over my newly tinted landscape and opening and closing the windows and making engine noises with my mouth and wondering how I’ll ever pay for him I look over at Big Black.

Yup. I’m a turd.

After a night spent thrashing and to-ing and fro-ing I called the buyer and told him I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t sell my old truck.

So she sits out front. Ready.

Is that a smirk?

396108 miles.

28293 gallons of gas.

400 quarts of oil.

80 oil filters.

19 tune ups.

7 sets of tires.

10 clutches.

2 transmissions.

21 years.

Whew.

I never thought I’d do it, nor did Miss Carol nor did most of my friends and family, but I did.

I sold Big Black.

And as goofy as it sounds it hurt like losing shit close to you always does.

I don’t know what I was hoping. Maybe that I’d just keep him around? That I could always look out the window and see my old rusting truck sitting and waiting?

Don’t know.

But he’s gone and there’s a hole in my heart.

Fuck.

Ya know.

There’s times when you can just pull the warm blankie of life up around your neck and snuggle in. All is soooo good that you just wanta hunker down and be glad with the universe.

That’s the way this weekend was-just coolie-o perfect and just right.

But, damn, a couple a cases of beer, a half dozen bottles of red wine, some shots, and two hangovers later, it’s over. My brother and his little cupcake saddled up and left yesterday morning taking with them tons of fun and laughter and leaving behind a quiet vacuum.

Back story time baby.

My brother and I have always been close but for many years our relationship suffered because of his marriage. Wait. Not suffered- was put on hold. His soon-to-be-ex never cared much for our family, and so kept him and his kids and herself away from us. I might see my brother at Christmas, maybe, but that was about it. We’d talk all the time but it’s not the same.

All that started changing  a year ago at Thanksgiving.

Miss Carol and me had invited my entire family down for the holiday and we had rented the house across the street for the long weekend. We knew my sisters and their families and Mom would be down, but we didn’t hold out much hope for my brother.

About a week before Thanksgiving all of us received an e-mail saying that he was coming down with someone else and wasn’t bringing his wife or kids and if anyone had a problem with it, he’d just stay away.

We’re hard-headed like that.

But we’re all also really close, so he came down and we met his little cupcake and fell in love with her. She is the best thing ever for my brother and, while I feel bad for all the divorce stuff he’s having to endure, man am I glad they found one another.

Not only is he happier than I’ve seen him in a decade, he’s able to visit and attend family stuff with his kids that he’d of missed just a few short years ago.

And hey, I get to see him more.

Snuggin’ up the warm blankie of the universe I am.

My brother and his little cupcake rolled into town yesterday afternoon for a couple a days. If past visits are any indication, and believe you me they are, Miss Carol and me are in for one rockin’ weekend.

So in anticipation I stocked up and now I’m locked and loaded and packed to the gills.

Epic beer abuse is cresting the horizon and I am sooooo ready for it.

This book makes Tug a little wary. And well it should. Apocalypse 2012 is chock-a-block full of reasons to start stockpiling survival gear.

Or exhausting all your savings and maxing out your credit cards, ’cause you might as well party hardy for our final two years of civilization.

If you buy into it, that is.

If you drink that particular kinda kool-aid, that is.

Author Lawrence E. Joseph’s premise that civilization ends in 2012 is based on the fact that the ancient Mayan calendar inexplicably stops in 2012. (Actually, 12/21/12 to be precise, which is 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan Long Count calendar-whatever the F that is.)

Then Mr. Joseph spends 237 pages examining scenarios and building rationale to support this end-of-it-all date.

Didn’t we just go through this in 2000?

(Oh wait. Larry debunks the Y2K comparison early on by calling it “nothing but a transition from a digitally unremarkable number to a nice big round one.”-  hey, we can’t have old doom and gloom challenging the creds of his new doom and gloom, now can we?)

So anyway.

From overdue mass extinction to increasing sunspot activity to a crack in the earth’s magnetic field to a supervolcano under Yellowstone Park getting ready to blow to the interstellar energy cloud that our solar system is getting ready to enter, Larry presents argument after argument that 2012 is going to be one wild ride.

But ya know what? Maybe because I’m intellectually impotent and not that smart, I’m not so sure.

It just seems that, like so many books of this genre, there appears to be an over abundance of author supported data and a suspicious lack of contradictory theory and facts.

Which is fine.

But add to that the fact that Larry claims in his own introduction that he himself doesn’t think that December 21, 2012 will mark the end of the world and that all he’s trying to do is present the facts and you get the feeling that maybe all he’s really trying to do is sell books.

Which is fine too.

So. When all’s said and done, Apocalypse 2012 is interesting in all the ways that strangely, weirdly coincidental stuff is always strangely and weirdly interesting, but I’m not gonna be stockpiling beer and dog food just yet.

Next up- American Nomads by Richard Grant

So this is how it goes.

Ya wanta write somethin’ upliftingly worth reading, worth the 10-15 seconds spent cruising through.

But ya can’t. It’s maybe not worth the effort or maybe you’re drunk or maybe tired.

But you try.

You turn up the music thinking that’ll help and ya force it, squinting and pushing until you give up and give birth to a lame-o post and a picture of Cutter and Tug looking longlingly for yet another biscuit.

And you slink away, covering your head in shame like a cop-killer after sentencing.

I’d never heard of Russell Banks.

Which maybe isn’t saying a great deal since I haven’t heard of a lot of things but I like to think that I generally try to keep up with good authors.

But I’d never even heard of him.

I was at our local Barnes and Noble a couple a weeks ago, my heart pounding, my palms all sweaty, ’cause Miss Carol had given me a gift card for my birthday and it was book buyin’ time. Woo-hoo!!!

You gotta realize; excitement-wise, for me, a gift card to Barnes and Noble ranks right up there with a bikini-model orgy- I’m just dweebie that way.

So there I was, prowlin’ the aisles ogling at all the books like a mental patient and trying not to drool too much when I came across Russell Banks.

Have I mentioned that I’d never heard of him?

After  lookin’ at his books for a minute, I picked up Affliction and thumbed through it, reading a page here and there but I put it back ’cause I didn’t really like the font or the feel of the paper- did I mention I’m dweebie?- and moved on.

I was getting ready to check out when something about Affliction drew me back and forced me to buy it and boy howdy am I glad I did. At the risk of risking my creds, this is one of the best books I’ve read in quite a while.

It’s the story of a middle-aged man feeling trapped by family, life, luck, and circumstance in a bleak little town in New Hampshire where he’s lived his whole life. It’s an unraveling sorta story, the kind that pulls you in and keeps you wondering where it’s all gonna end but knowing it’s probably not gonna end good.

I loved it and even though it really resonated with me having had an abusive alcoholic father my-own-self, it is so beautifully written that you don’t have to have been beaten to enjoy it and empathize with the weaknesses of Wade Whitehouse, the main character.

It’s amazingly good.

In my, you know, humble opinion.

Next up- Apocalypse 2012 by Lawrence E. Joseph

Add this to his looonnnnnggggg list of quirks- an apparent aversion to me chopping firewood.

I don’t know where he gets it, I really don’t.

I’m tryin’ to split some wood yesterday when- all the sudden- there’s Cutter; barking at me, his barks reverberating canyon-style off the condo’s across the street, and while he’s barking he’s darting in and out trying to disrupt(?) my swing and save(?) the firewood(?).

Whassup wit dat?

So I put him and Tug back in the house and Cutter immediately tears through the house over to the sliding glass door glaring out at me wide eyed, barking wildly again, frenetically and frantically pawing the glass ’til I’m laughing so hard I couldn’t chop wood if I wanted to.

Little fucker.