Mother’s Day on the Cheap

Last year for Mother’s Day I took my mom and dad up to Reno for the weekend to see Bill Cosby perform. I had just decided to buy a condo and I knew that it might be a few years before I was able to afford to spend any kind of money on Mother’s Day. I was trying to leave her with some decent memories to hold on to once my mortgage started taking all my disposable income (making it considerably less disposable...).

Well then, it turns out my mortgage has got nothing on a 10 week book tour. So currently my bank account is ridiculously, dangerously slim. I knew that my mom knows I’m broke, so I knew she wouldn’t want me spending any money on a Mother’s Day present for her. So I had to get creative. My aunt recommended that I cook her a meal. I recommended that my aunt stop getting high.

Instead of a real gift I decided to go the ridiculous route. Why not really? It’s not my fault the woman only decided to have one kid and therefore only has one hope for a decent gift on Mother’s Day. Let this be a lesson to you people out there who are thinking about only have one child - you’re really taking a very big risk that your one kid will be a horrible gift-giver.

Today that risk backfired on my mom.

I went to the craft store in town yesterday (never one to wait until the last moment) and bought a do-it-yourself stepping stone thing. Do you know what I’m talking about? The things that people get and have their kids put their adorable hands in the cement so they can forever have an imprint of their child’s youth and innocence? Yeah. I got one.

I was going to make her an ashtray, but I couldn’t find any clay. And I’m not really sure if my oven is okay for firing ceramics.

So I opened the package up, read the directions and realized I might be screwed. The directions said I needed a bucket to mix the cement in. I don’t have a bucket. I thought for a second of using the mixing bowls someone gave me. But, to my credit, I decided against that. I think that marks a tremendous level of maturity on my part. Of course, I might be even more mature if I had actually ever used those mixing bowls for anything other than eating popcorn out of. Yet I digress. I went down to the garage to see if I could find anything to mix my Mother’s Day gift in. Miraculously there was a bucket down there. It is not my bucket and I have no idea where it came from, but someone that I let stay with me apparently left a bucket and my mixing bowls owe their life to that person.

I mixed the cement together, which I had just done in New Orleans a couple weeks ago, so I mixed quite well. Then I poured the mix into the little plastic mold thing and let it sit for however long cement needs to sit. Then I put my handprint in and remembered all the awesome gifts I’ve given my mom over the years. This would not be falling in the same category with those gifts. My advice to kids: don’t set yourself up for failure by giving great gifts when you are a kid. Give crappy gifts well into your 20's so that the expectations are low. In fact, that is pretty good advice for all aspects of your life. Keep other people’s expectations very low. Then you are bound to wow them quite a bit.

Anywho. Today I finished off The Best Mother’s Day Gift Ever by adding some lovely paint to the dried stepping stone with my handprint. I painted “I (heart) Mom” and then at the bottom I put “Dawn - Age 29". Ha! God I crack myself up.

Besides that exciting gift we spent the day eating food and watching Thelma and Louise and napping. I have a feeling mom might be looking into adopting some more kids. She obviously can’t count on me to come through for the major gift-giving days anymore.

But, if she’s lucky someday soon she’ll have a whole stepping stone path with my handprints in the backyard. And if that ain’t something to be proud of, I just don’t know what is.

Some Article I Saw

I saw this headline online today:

Family awakened to find half-naked man in bed with them

So I, of course, investigated further. If you read the article (http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=local&id=5291980) you will learn some very interesting tidbits about this story. The most interesting has to be the fact that this IS NOT THE FIRST TIME this has happened to this family. Seriously. Can someone explain to me what exactly is going on in the world?

Apparently this grandmother and the grandfather and two grandkids were in bed sleeping. Then the grandmother was woken (awoken? awaken? who knows.) by the granddaughter who was saying that someone was “on her”. Up until that point grandma had no idea that a unknown grown man had just crawled into bed with her. Of course, given the fact that the whole friggin’ family was already in the bed I could see how it would be difficult to distinguish between unknown people getting in the bed and just more relatives joining in for a slumber party.

This slumber party took a bit of a dirty turn when grandma noticed that Unknown Grown Man had his pants around his ankles while laying in the bed. This caused Known Grown Man to chase Unknown Grown Man off with threats of killing him.

The family is understandably a little shaken. CAUSE THIS KEEPS HAPPENING. This dude keeps coming in and getting into bed with these people in the middle of the night. Maybe he’s lonely and sees that this bed is clearly a welcoming one and so he decides to stop in for a moment. I dunno.

What I do know is that there are these knew things called, uh, LOCKS. And uh, SECURITY SYSTEMS. The locks help keep people out of your house, and then the security systems make a really loud noise to let you know if the locks did not work. Or, I guess the whole, “Let’s Wait For Little Susie to Scream Out in Horror and Panic Because There is an Unknown Grown Man Laying on Her” Security Plan is a little more economical than locks and security systems and it seems to be spot on in its ability to identify an intruder.

So carry on random bed family, carry on.

I’m Trying

I am trying ever so hard to come up with something worth blogging about. As I reported yesterday, my brain has taken a leave of absence. I do so hope it returns shortly. Or not. Being a zombie isn’t all that bad. It’s a lot less stressful that regular life.

Ahhh regular life. I am trying so hard to remember what that is. It’s slow goin’ in that department. So far the television has provided some insight for me. I’ve reconnected with my TV shows, and that is a start. I’ve also reconnected with sushi, which has gone a long way in making me feel like part of my own life once again.

I just don’t really know what I’m supposed to be DOING. I work from home. So I get up and walk down the hall and I do the work that clients require. And it’s not like there isn’t work to be done. There is. And I’m doing it. But see, the thing is, for the past few months I’ve been doing all that work PLUS planning a cross-country trip/book tour/New Orleans volunteer effort. So I’m left with a little bit of a hole where I used to put A WHOLE LOT OF CRAP.

Now I’m trying to figure out what to put in that space formally filled by a whole lot of crap. There are plenty of options. But I feel like I should just breathe for a minute and not jump immediately back into the craziness. But breathing takes a lot of energy and restraint and I’m not so good at being still, as it turns out. I’m very good at being stir crazy though, which is good to know.

My Blackberry broke the other day. I think it’s a sign. Well, I guess it could be a sign that you shouldn’t drop Blackberry’s in the toilet – BUT! I like to instead think of it as a sign that I don’t need a Blackberry anymore. That there is no reason for me to connected to everyone every single second of the day. And also, maybe that I shouldn’t keep my phone in my back pocket...

In book news, there is a little blurb about me in Runner’s World this month:



Do you understand how completely ridiculous it is that there is anything, blurb or otherwise, about ME in Runner’s Friggin World? I mean really. This could be why I feel so out of sorts, there is something off in the world when I’m in Runner’s World magazine. Of course things have been off for awhile, as I was in Women’s Health magazine last month:

You notice that I was also the cover model for both magazines. Ha! I think it would be funny if I was the cover model for these magazines, standing next to their cover models. That would be comedy.

In other magazine news I am once again getting US Weekly in my mailbox every week. This magazine cannot stay away from me. Last year it showed up in my mailbox uninvited for like a year. Then a renewal postcard came warning me that my subscription was about to end. This warning didn’t worry me too much, as I hadn’t subscribed to it. And then last week/month/sometime while I was gone I got another postcard saying that Premiere magazine was being discontinued and the rest of the subscription I’d paid for would come in the form of US Weekly. Seriously? You are replacing Premiere with US Weekly? Please.

Premiere is a movie magazine about actual movies and movie-makers. With actual interview with directors and actors and writers and producers. With actual articles about things that don’t have to do with Britney’s crotch. There’s no other magazine they could think of to replace Premiere? The more I think about it the sadder I get, because that is pretty much how our media goes now. Anything of any substance has been cast aside to make room for more and more insignificant crap. Not that Premiere was National Geographic or anything, but come on, compared to US Weekly Premiere is practically the New Testament. Except with George Clooney on the front. Which is something the New Testament might want to look into - it would help sales a lot.

Okay, I’m done now. I’ve officially spent a lot of time saying nothing at all. So it turns out “Write Ridiculously Pointless Blogs” is on the list of things I can do to fill all my free time now. Any other suggestions?

Some Pictures

I really have no thoughts at this time. My brain is on strike.

But I do have some pictures. And they are supposed to be worth a lot of words, I've heard.

Peeking Out

Hello all.

It has been quite some time since I’ve written. My bad.

I got home from my 10 week book tour/New Orleans trip. Since that time I have been doing a lot of bonding with my couch and TV. I’m actually sore today from laying down for so many hours. Sore. That is fantastic.

I don’t really know what to do with myself entirely.

Since December, and probably even before that, I’ve been planning or doing this book tour thing. At the same time I’ve been doing my real job as well, as mortgages are fun things to pay sometimes. I hear. So now I’m done with the planning and the trip. And all that is left is my real work.

There are a lot of hours in the day.

When you don’t have any morning shows to do, or book events to go to, or random groups of people to talk to, or 500 miles to drive, or 25 people to organize in New Orleans, or 25 meals to eat in New Orleans, or ulcers to get.

I’m forcing myself to take a moment to breathe a little, to be okay with the calm for a second at least. My house is quiet. It hasn’t been quiet near me for months. It’s a weird sound to get used to.

There are still a lot more things on the List of Things to Do. So I will not be calm for long. But I’m trying, I really am. I’m trying to process the last 10 weeks. Trying to get some perspective on it now that I’m done. It already feels like something I did once. Not something I did last week.

Here was the last promo that was put together. It’s a lot like the first one, but with a little more added on. Watch till the end, there a little extra after the pr info.

And, because nothing is more important than tradition, here is the Dog de Mayo:

May Flowers and all that. You know, I remember coming up with some funnier ones that these than we’ve seen so far. I wonder what the hell months they are for, cause May Flowers is boring. Next year I think we’ll do all over the top ones that make no sense whatsoever. We’ll make the dog into modern art. Hell, we could probably then sell him for 3 million bucks.

Screw book tours I’m becoming an impressionist artist.

Greetings from NOLA

Good lord it has been forever since I’ve blogged. My bad. It seems I haven’t thought much about blogging this past week. I usually blog as mainly a way to keep friends and family updated on what I’m doing and where I’m going. But see, many of my friends and family were here with me in New Orleans. So it seemed silly to write a blog when I could just tell them to their face what I’m up to and where I’m going. Chances were they were up and going to the same things.

So we are in New Orleans trying to save the world. And eat as much food as humanly possible. The eating takes a long time, you know. And then there is the digestion and the plotting of the next meal. This too has left little time for blogging. I know you understand.

It’s been great to be back here in New Orleans and to be here with so many of my friends and family who came out to build and play. And eat. It’s been a wonderful way to end these past couple of months and a great way to sorta refuel after the draining effects of doing a book tour for 8 weeks. The book tour already feels like a distant memory and I’m glad to have washed it away with some good stuff here in New Orleans. Good people, good work, good food, great drink specials. And so on.

We are having a lovely time here and I am glad that a bunch of people in my group got to come out and see for themselves what is going on out here. It is nearly impossible to comprehend until you come here and see it with your eyes. A New Orleans resident said to me today, “We don’t have post-traumatic stress, because we are still in the trauma.”

I will be back here again, many times in the years to come. I’ve fallen in love with this city. Even in its weakened state it still has a hell of a lot to offer, and I think its people are probably some of the few in this country that would be able to fight back from this. They’ve got fight these folks. But they need other people to fight for them too. I hope to be one of those people for many years.

We will be here for a few more days, then it will be time to pack my suitcase one more time, get on one more airplane, and go home. My sweet home. With its wonderful couch and big screen TV. It’s waiting for me. I hope it remembers me. I know I remember it. Quite fondly actually.

Here is a video of our experience with a travel guide book:

NOLA

We have finally made it to New Orleans. My good lord did it take us awhile. Next time, by the way, I think I’ll just head straight to Louisiana. I don’t know if this state is looking especially nice because it is the last one I’ll have to see before I go home, or if I really do love Louisiana. Probably a little of both. There is something unique here. The combination of New Orleans and the area outside of New Orleans. They are two entirely different places, with totally different people. And yet they aren’t that far away from each other. I like both places. I like both people.

We went and saw a play today. It is called Rising Water. I read about it in the paper yesterday and we went and checked it out today. On Sundays the playwright comes to the play and has a Q&A session with the audience after the show is over. This is heaven for me. The creator of art, sitting right there, telling you how and why they created.

It’s a play about the floods, about two people who are waken in the night by rising water in their home. They don’t know where the water is coming from and why it is coming so fast. Katrina has passed, it had missed the city really. Why are they having to sit in their attic to avoid the amount of water that is rising in their house? It’s a great play, only two actors on stage for 2 hours. The dialogue flows and the story is told and you get a teeny tiny glimpse into what it must have been like. To have the levees break. To have your city under water, and to have no idea why.

The Q&A session was more like a dialogue itself. Many of the people in the audience were New Orleans residents. They had their own stories to tell. Mostly they said, “No one in the rest of the country knows what happened here. They just don’t get it.”

And we don’t.

It’s impossible to describe to people what happened here. That is wasn’t Katrina that flooded New Orleans, it was the failed levee system. A system similar to ones in cities throughout the country. And then after the levees failed, everything else failed as well. The stories you hear from people here, they make you wonder why there aren’t riots in the streets. And they make you understand why the suicide rate is 3 times the national average here.

My group of volunteers is going on a tour of the devastated areas on Thursday. It’s a two and a half hour tour. During that time we will not repeat anything. And we will probably still not see all the damage that was done.

The scope.

That is what we in the rest of the country don’t understand. An entire city wiped off the map. That doesn’t seem possible, so we can’t quite grasp it. But it is possible.

The French Quarter is still open for business, tourists still wander the streets, beer and food is still flowing from the bars and restaurants. So everything must be okay, right? Go 5 miles away from the French Quarter and you will see that no, it is not okay. And you will feel very strongly that it is so not okay how not okay this place is a year and a fucking half after the levees broke.

The playwright, John Biguenet, told a story today at the Q&A session. He said that Americans can’t wrap their heads around what has happened here but that the Europeans he’s met seem to understand. Because they’ve had whole cities destroyed before. There was a man from Germany who said that he understood what New Orleans was going through because Germany had been wiped out as well. He then said that New Orleans should take solace in how Germany rebuilt and rose out of its destruction. To this Mr. Biguenet replied, “Yes, but you had the United States helping you rebuild.”

I saw a bumper sticker recently that said, “If you’re not completely appalled, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

Pay attention.

My Driving Teacher

Driving Lessons

Sherry let me drive the RV the other day. Lord help me. And everyone else on the freeway. Thank the same lord that there weren’t very many of his people on the freeway, because I was taking up most of the freeway with my driving. I don’t know where anyone else would have fit.

See, the thing is, I’m used to driving a CRV. CRV’s are very tiny. RV’s, towing pickup trucks? Not so tiny. Wow. Talk about nerve-wracking. One would think that Sherry’s nerves might have been a little wracked, but no. A nice afternoon cocktail took care of her nerves. If only I could have had a few cocktails, because my nerves were a wreck.

I got us to our destination without causing harm to us or anyone else. To me that is a job well done. We won’t discuss how many lanes I needed to take up at one time, those details are unimportant. What is important is that people realize that it is not easy to navigate such a large automobile/home and therefore they need to just, “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY ” Ahem. It’s kinda difficult to brake when you are going 70 in a house on wheels. Make note of that wouldja?

Next time you see a motor home in your rearview mirror, just pull over and let them pass. You never know who might be behind the wheel. And you never know if the only person really qualified to drive the home on wheels is in the back mixing a cocktail.

I’m here to inform.

Here is a video of my driving adventure. It’s like a Driver’s Ed video gone terribly wrong.

Texas

We’s in Texas ya’ll.

I got my cowboy hat on and I’m ready to rock this state.

We lost two hours getting here.

We haven’t really had to be anywhere at any time the last couple of days so time isn’t all that important. But it’s still a funny thing, “What time is it?” “3, 4 or 5 o’clock, I’m not sure where we are exactly.”

Tomorrow we head to Austin and then to Houston. Then we will vote republican and perhaps buy a gun. Isn’t that what people do here. Hey! Did someone die? The flags are all at half mast. (Is it half mast or half massed? Dunno.) I always hate when I see flags at half mast, because it makes me sad and a little confused. I figure someone must have died, so I should be sad, but I’m not really sure who died, so maybe if I knew I wouldn’t have strong feelings either way. Basically flags at half mast sorta confuse me emotionally, I don’t know how to appropriately react. Hell, maybe they are still at half mast for that Ford guy that died. They were at half mast for weeks after he died. Every time I saw one I thought someone new had died, but no.

And speaking of presidents, I’ve been told that Lady Bird Johnson was big into the beautification of Texas highways. Is this true? Apparently she was all about making the highways pretty. Really? Can this really be true? That a First Lady of the friggin’ United States of America decided to spend her time and energy and influence and power on planting flowers along the highway? EVERY flower we’ve seen along the highway Sherry points at and says, “Lady Bird did that.” What a phenomenal legacy...

Tonight it was all of a sudden 10 o’clock and we hadn’t eaten dinner. We had big dreams of a real dinner that wasn’t eaten in the motor home, but alas our dreams were not quite answered when the only thing open was Sonic. See, the thing with Sonic is that they have really good commercials that really make me want to go to Sonic. But the bastards haven’t actually BUILT a Sonic near me. They just run ads. They did put up a sign near my house like three years ago. It says “Coming Soon”. It is lying. So I have this kinda idealized notion of what Sonic is. I’ve seen the great commercials with great looking burgers and fries and tasty treats aplenty. Yeah. So we went to Sonic tonight and well, they should stick with making commercials because they seem to be pretty good at that and I don’t think they have any hope of their cooking ever being good. Edwin actually said, “Well, the Coke is okay.” God love him and his search for the bright side.

Some Pictures from the Road

Skywalk, Part 2

Here’s the thing: The Sky Walk is a rip-off. Tell everyone you know. Tell them to avoid the Sky Walk and go to some other part of the huge, wonderful Grand Canyon.

The Sky Walk costs $25. BUT you can’t just go on the Sky Walk. The Sky Walk is only available as an add-on to another one of the tour packages they have available. The cheapest tour package you can get is $50. So then. You have to add on the Sky Walk for another $25. This brings us up to $75 for the joy of walking on a glass thing that is really beyond lame.

What does the rest of the tour include? Well, a bus ride. That was fun. It was 5 minutes. Then an All You Can Eat Buffett. We have a suggestion, perhaps All You Can Stand Buffett might be a better name. Truth in advertising and all that. Oh and speaking of which, here is the “artist rendering” of the skywalk:


Ooooo, ahhhhh.

Now, I present you, my experience in how the Native Americans intend to screw over the country that did them so wrong. Also, please notice my cute pink hat I have added to my travel ensemble. I bought it at a running store in LA. Quite aerodynamic, yes? Texas is going to LOVE me.

Oh, and the video is pretty long, so I recommend pushing play, then pause and letting it load all the way to the end before you try watching it, it will play better that way. You wouldn't want to miss a moment of this thing.

Sky Walk Sucks

Do not go to the Sky Walk Glass Thingy at the Grand Canyon. Please. For your sake and for the sake of the Indians on the reservation there. Because, the thing is, if people keep going there and keep getting totally screwed by being made to pay $75 a person to walk on what turns out to be a really lame glass thing that doesn’t really extend that far out over the canyon, well then, bad things are going to start happening to the Native Americans on that reservation. I’m not saying I’m a violent person, but I am saying that if you drive down a bumpy dirt road for 20 miles (after already having gone hours out of your way to come see the wonder) then you are made to pay $75 for the privilege of walking around the Grand Canyon, well, uh, things could get really un-grand real quick. Is all I’m saying.

The thing is ridiculous. It looks absolutely nothing like the artist rendering that lured us to what we believed would be an awesome abundance of nature’s beauty and enormity. But no. All it turned to be was a brilliant display of how people will always try to do something to get more money out of other people, as well as a fantabulous representation of how those people who are made to pay are then treated as though they are inconveniencing the entire Native American population by merely wanting to see some of this promised wonder and beauty.

I have made a lovely video documenting our waste of $200 and several hours of our time. Unfortunately I have very slow internet because we are in the middle of nowhere. So the video is loading at a speed that may make it available for viewing sometime next Fall. Stay tuned for that.

We also went to Vegas this weekend and spent a little time on the strip. We went and saw the Cirque show LOVE, the one that is with all the Beatles songs. Have you guys seen the Cirque shows on Bravo? Where they have all those people performing amazing acrobatic acts as well as overall astounding physical tests? I have. So I keep going to these Cirque shows expecting to see people doing a bunch of awe-inspiring acrobatics. And, somehow, these shows keep forgetting that they are a Cirque show and perhaps should throw in someone balancing on someone else’s head or something. Work with me here.

I did enjoy the Beatles music, and visually the show was amazing. So overall it was a good way to spend a Saturday night. Another good thing about the night was that I won $10 in the casino while we were waiting for the show. I played nickel slots and kept winning random-ass things. I was up to quite a few credits, but I wasn’t really sure how much money those credits translated to, so I just kept playing. Who knows how much I won or lost, or why I won or lost it for that matter. Who understands nickel slots really? You just push the button and wait to see if you won. There are lines everywhere with random ass pictures popping up and animated things making noise and singing songs. Man I love nickel slots. “I won! I got four buoys and a crab cage!”

So that was my weekend. I also did a couple morning shows and a book thing. Nothing too exciting there. I’m sure TONS of people were gathered around the morning show on Easter morning watching me talk about carbo-loading. I probably sold at least 20,000 books....

The Dog for April

Okay, well, some of these costumes aren’t as entertaining as others. I’ll give you that. But you try to come up with 12 costumes for a ceramic dog (no really, do that, I’ll use them next year.)


Apparently we were going for an “April showers brings May flowers” thing with this. It seems a bit weird to see the dog in a rain outfit, seeing as though it almost feels summer-y here. But I am not the one who invented the saying “April showers” so don’t blame me that it doesn’t really make sense.

In other news I am once again leaving my happy home and taking to the open road tomorrow. I am not so happy to be leaving my home. I ready to be home for good, and I still have another month. Ugh.

The good news about this leg is that it involves this:

A home on wheels! Yay! This thing actually opens out in the middle when it is stopped, which actually makes it about as big as my condo. AND it has two TV’s. Yay home on wheels!

My friend Sherry has agreed to spend the next few weeks on the Dawn Is Trying to Convince You to Buy Her Book Tour. She’s a great sport and a great friend to offer her home on wheels to my dreams on wheels. It’s all very Road Rules of us. Maybe we’ll stop every once and awhile and do a random physical challenge just like they used to do on MTV’s version. Could happen.

See ya on the road kids...

Stuff

The REI things are going surprisingly well. Fun fact: I can BS for really any length of time, as it turns out. Well, I don’t really think of it as BS-ing, I just think of it as thinking on my feet. I’ve just gone in there the past couple of nights, taken a seat and started talking about marathon training. I mean really. I wrote 200 friggin pages about it, the least I can do it rambling on about it for an hour or so. The only problem seems to be that I don’t have much of a set outline of what I’m going to say, so tonight I kept hesitating on things, because I didn’t know if I had already said those things tonight, or was that last night? Geez, this is probably why people write things down and formulate thoughts before they give seminars on running. Maybe I’ll formulate thoughts on the next book tour. Or maybe I’ll formulate thoughts before the book tour and as a result will decide not to actually go on a book tour.

Lot’s of stuff has happened between blogs, and since I’m not blogging as often as usual I feel like some stuff is going unreported here in the blogworld. For that I am ever so sorry. For instance, it’s April something or other now and we still don’t have an updated picture of my mom’s ceramic dog. Things are falling apart here. You know, one of my friends suggested that I make a myspace page for the dog. I think I just might. His pictures are much better than half of the people on myspace. And he’s wearing more clothes in his pictures. (The dog, not my friend)

Last night on my way back from Seminar de Dawn I had to stop at YET ANOTHER TOLL BOOTH. Seriously. I am beginning to harbor a resentment towards tollbooths that is bordering on homicidal. Last night I came very close to hopping that border. It’s late at night. I have no cash. I see a sign saying there is a tollbooth coming up. There is no sign for an exit where I might be able to go get money. I get to the tollbooth. I have no money I say, can you send me a bill or something? The man says that the bill will be $29 if I can’t pay. This is when I started taking very big steps towards the border. I said maybe I had the $4 (and by the way - $4 for a FRIGGIN’ TOLL?!!!! Please someone do the math on how much @##%^&#$!@#$!#$ money these tollbooths are bringing in. Perhaps maybe we could set up a tollbooth to help fund things like education and health care for the poor, instead of just potholes.) in change, could I just pull to the side so the other people could go while I counted my change? He said no, the people would have to wait. I did not have $4 in change, so he took down my license number and will be sending me a bill that charges me over 900% interest because I am one of the millions of people in this country who operate almost exclusively on plastic, not cash. Do you think I could have sued the tollbooth company if I was attacked and mugged while going to get cash in the middle of the night in order to pay their ridiculous toll? Ooooooooooohhhhhh, I am not a happy driver. I will be sending this ticket back with a very strongly worded letter and a $5 bill. I am willing to pay 25% interest. That to me seems fair. If you can consider paying to driving a FREEway fair to begin with.

In other news I made a short video of two videos from Southern California. The first is a little sushi place in San Diego. It’s got flat screens all over the place, playing the most random stuff. The second was a huge bomb-looking fire in Hollywood. Big stuff, captured on film for you...

Things

It has been ever so long since I’ve written. My bad. Turns out the whole sick/traveling/book crap/still doing real work stuff combines to leave very little time for things like real thoughts and/or blogging. I am ever so sorry that you have not had up-to-the-minute blogs from Camp Dawn. I’ll do my best to keep that from happening again. We’ll see how it goes.

I am once again back home. And I am once again very happy about that. Let’s not get into the scheduling genius that keeps leading me back home, shall we? I fear it may lead to discussions of other very intelligent people and things that have marked this little tour of mine. Instead lets focus on some other things.

One thing is that my Blackberry just randomly decided to change times on Sunday morning, springing forward and all that. My modern, technologically advance little Blackberry. Didn’t get the memo that we already sprung forward a few weeks ago. This left me up an hour early on Sunday. An hour earlier than the ridiculous 5 a.m. time I was supposed to be up for a 5k thing I was going to.

I’m running around my cousin’s house getting ready, when she looks up from her bed and says, “What time are we supposed to leave?” I say, “Now!” She says, “It’s 4:30.". I say, “No, it’s 5:30." She says, “No my clock says it’s 4:30.” Me, “Mine says it’s 5:30." Her, “Your clock is high.” Me, “Maybe your clock is high.” Her “gets out of bed and goes to find tie-breaking clock in the living room, points to it” “That is the clock from the cable company, it’s right, yours is high, I’m going back to bed.”

Funny thing is, at 4 or 5 a.m. it is just basically “early as hell” a.m. - so that one hour didn’t make a lot of difference.

Last night I flew home and got home at about midnight-ish. I’d been up (minus a nap) since about 4. But when I saw my TV is was hit with my 8th wind. I was up till 5 catching up on my shows. Man do I love TV.

Another thing: Tomorrow. And then Wednesday and Thursday as well. Could be very interesting. I am to speak at three REI’s. Do they have REI’s everywhere? They are like outdoorsy stores. Not in like a fish and game sort of way, but more in a climb a mountain, sleep under the stars sort of way. I guess. So I am to speak at these stores. I am to inform people how to train for their first marathon. Cause you know, I wrote a sarcastic book about running. Hmmm. This has the potential to go very poorly. Very quickly. Well, actually, very longly. Cause this talking? It’s supposed to take awhile. Marathons are 26 miles, so I guess they require a lot of time to talk about them. Oy.

The REI Lady said to me, “You will start at 7pm, we’d really like for you to wrap it up by 8:30, so you have time to sign books.” Riiiighty-o. Do you know that an hour an a half is the average length of most movies? Feature length films? The ones that take years to write and produce and edit and present? Those very ones. And I’m supposed to stand up in front of people and talk or whatever for the equivalent of a whole movie? How the? What the? Oh! Maybe I’ll just PLAY a movie! That is a brilliant idea. Quick, what’s a good running movie? Chariots of Fire, right? I’ll put the song on a loop while I talk. There were also those two about that Prefontane (sp?) guy. He dies at the end of both though, so I don’t know if that is the best message to send to people. But then again, the movies are dramas, so they are probably 2 hours long, he is probably just in the height of his second act glory at an hour and a half, so that might work.

You know what is really funny in a not so funny sort of way? I really have no idea what I’m going to talk about for an hour an a half. Let’s hope they have a lot of questions. And perhaps a VCR.

Not So Cured

Shocker of shockers, Mountain Dew and popcorn didn’t quite cure me. I have been in bed all day yet again. Yet again rising for only food and some dessert. I can’t imagine why I don’t feel well.

I think my body is rebelling, I think it very much wants to be on my couch back home watching TV and eating Chinese take-out. It has humored me for this long and now it is just about done with this silly touring thing. It is expressing its disapproval in the form of body aches and exhaustion.

My head is clogged up and I can’t breathe or hear that well. I’m thinking that tomorrow’s morning show appearance is going to be simply fabulous. Don’t miss it if you are in San Diego. I may just stare blankly into the camera for my entire three minute segment. Could happen.

Funny thing, not a lot to report about today, as most of it was spent sleeping.

BUT I do have a video from a bathroom I visited here in San Diego. Well, I didn’t JUST visit the bathroom, I was actually in the restaurant and then I went into the bathroom. And then I went in again with my camera, because it was something that I knew you guys would want to see. Yes, I know I have a problem that needs to be addressed when it comes to cameras and bathrooms. But really, it can take a number in the Problems That Need to Be Addressed line. It’s a very long line.

Cured

Today is the 10 year anniversary of the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide thing. How do I know that? Because that is the Depressing Story of the Day that I had the joy of following this morning on San Diego morning television. Well, to be honest, I actually followed the story about how panda poop can be made into paper. Or something. And that’s not depressing so much as disgusting, so I guess that is a step in some direction for my television appearances.

Things are going okay here. I have been hit with a cold or flu of some sort, I’m not sure what sort. But it seems to be the sort that involves no energy and the desire to sleep 23 hours a day. (The other hour I enjoy eating something) I am feeling a little better now. This could have to do with several of my rock solid healing techniques.

1) The sleeping I mentioned earlier. Now, granted, I did only get a few hours sleep before I had to go inspire San Diego on morning TV, but the great thing about morning TV is that you can go, inspire and then be back in bed by like 8 am. I barely even had a chance to wake up and I was back in bed. And in that bed I remained for quite a many hours.

2) I woke up just long enough to eat some food and drink some Mountain Dew. I haven’t been feeling well so I’ve been drinking water instead of Mountain Dew. This was giving me a bitch of a caffeine headache and I think was contributing to my overall crappy feeling.

3) Then I woke up again and went and saw a movie. I felt like crap and probably should have stayed in bed, and probably infected the entire theater, but damnit if movies don’t make me feel better. These are the things I need in life: Movies and TV, at regular intervals. Without them I get weak and achy.

So then, I feel better and plan on maintaining this health with even more sleeping tomorrow. And perhaps a gallon of Nyquil before I go to bed.

I believe my book tour is about half over now. And I believe that I am very ready for it to be all the way over. Two months is too long to be away from your life, I’ve decided. And being away from your life doesn’t pay well, so it would be nice to return to my life and to the positive cash flow it offers. The little things in this life. These are what make me happy.

That and movie popcorn.

Oh My.

It has been ever so long since I wrote. Since Sunday it would seem. Not that days really mean anything to me. I tend to just look about two days ahead on my schedule at a time. I know where I am supposed to be in two days. I don’t particularly care what actual days of the week those are. Monday, Thursday, Sunday. All the same.

This week has been nice. Why? Because I got to come home. The good lord set me free from the frozen parts of this country and dropped me in California via a plane. How I love California. And planes for that matter. They go a little quicker than cars, it turns out. It took me two weeks to get to Minnesota. And 4 hours to get home. Did I mention I love planes?

One thing that planes are lacking in slightly is cargo space. It turns out that a lot of stuff fits in an SUV. A lot. And it is then quite difficult to check all that stuff onto a plane. Who woulda thought? We spent several hours and a trip to luggage section of Goodwill (suitcases for a $5!! Really pretty ones too!!) trying to figure out a way to get the SUV back to California on a plane. We ended up each having three bags and two carry-ons. We were fully ready to pay an arm and a leg, but for some reason the kind Baggage Checker Guy let it slide and didn’t charge us anything. God bless you Baggage Checker Guy.

Then we made it home. Well, to San Francisco. Which isn’t so much home. It is still a couple hours away from home. And that is not including the HOUR AND A HALF IT TOOK ME TO RENT A DAMN CAR. Let’s not get into that, because I fear my head may explode if I have to revisit exactly how close I was to killing someone at 1 a.m. in the Thrifty Car Rental place. It was not the best example of my patience.

But at least when it was all done I was in my very own bed. !!! Halle-friggin-lujah.

My bed, and my house and my TV are all very significant reasons why there hasn’t been a blog in quite sometime. I missed my home so much. I need to spend some quality time with it while I have the chance. My DVR alone requires hours of my attention. Do you know that I haven’t watched TV in like a month? Do you know that that is probably the first month in my entire life that I’ve gone without watching TV? Do you know that it’s not healthy for me to go without TV? I can’t tell you how happy I am to have reconnected with my TV and bed and couch. They missed me so and have welcomed me home with open arms and taped shows aplenty.

Tomorrow is my second of two free days, then I’m off for another month on the road. Who the hell do I think I am? The Rolling Stones? And who the hell do the Rolling Stones think they are? 22 years old? I can’t believe those guys are still touring. It’s exhausting going from town to town and not being able to just relax in your own house. I can’t imagine people who do it all year. But then again I might be able to better imagine it if I were making a million bucks a night. That might trigger the imagination a bit...

A Short Film of Triumph

A short film about my harrowing cell phone tale from last week...

Triumph Over Evil