When you get to a certain age the idea of “dating” becomes a profound hassle.  To compound that hassle is that the world has created a plethora of dating sites and social media outlets to exponentially complicate it even further.  This gulag of digital dating and profile swiping has, at least for me, led me to recoil like a man taking his first dip in icy waters.  I’m turtle-heading it all the way.  So when I happened upon todays topic I was somewhat cynical about casting these words out into  the digital realm.

Part 1 – The well runneth dry, cheeseburger picnic, and Jack the Dog

If any of you have been following my Facebook feed you will know that I have been battling a mechanical issue with my well pump.  I have preformed various in depth surgeries over the past few days…all with minor successes and bigger setbacks.  My quest for replacement parts has produced a running electric motor that now kicks on and off as it should.  This was quite the boon since I was almost certain it had went to the great pump house in the sky.  The flipside is this..once reassembled and and hooked up…the pump side of this equation had numerous leaks and bad seals that only an online purchase to the Amazon god could fix.  So no water til Monday…This leads me to my next point.  When you dont have water it sorta limits household functions.  No flushing of the toilets…no water for laundry……no cool drinks from the garden hose.   This morning has been quite warm and with all the aforementioned hindrances I was inspired to take a dog or two to the park for a splash and soak– per our agreement every time we go there is a 50/50 chance that a magical “cheeseburger picnic” can happen.  So loading up Jack the dog and some provisions we sat out to Island Park for a dip and a dine.   Jack is an amazing dog… he is the stoic of my pack and also the clown.  His love of people and the park is something I could genuinely learn from… a K9 zen that is a mixture of slobber and tennis ball appreciation.

Part 2 –  Can I call her “robust”? –are we allowed to do that anymore?

If you live in Mt. Pleasant you are more than likely very familiar with Island Park.   It is “the place” as parks go in town.   “All roads lead here” pretty much sums it up if you are traversing any paved trails in town.  When I first returned from Utah and Colorado I worked for Mt. Pleasant Parks Department and spent a lot of time emptying garbage cans and cleaning bathrooms.   Everyone comes to Island Park at one time or another…from bums to millionaires.  Baseball, Softball, Basketball, shuffleboard, heroin, meth, timbertown.  It’s all here at different times.  Public parks are the true melting pot of a towns cultural and economic diversity.

Today Jack and I decided this was our destination.  There is a spot where the water is easily accessible and Jack can stride right in like the waterdog he pretends to be.   We parked and headed over for a lazy dip… Jack was adamant about stopping every 20 feet and letting any other passing dog he had been there… copiously.   Our water adventure was a quiet one…and afterwards we decided a walk would be needed to dry out shorts and fur….and to mark our path—copiously.    As we approached the spray park I noticed my furry friend panting and I thought a good drink was in order to cool him off.   So we sat down and I poured water into his collapsible dish..him eagerly lapping up the cool water we have been denied at home.   The spray park is like–like the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese.  You unleash your kid into this fenced in area and hope for the best knowing that there is probably a myriad of waterborne nasties being shot out water cannons at high speed.  You put your kid in and set the timer til they fall down, get tired, or start fighting with little Billy.   People do this because it’s “fun” and its a great way to cool off ( mind you the river is literally 25 feet away)  Today was no different.  The minivan mob had arrived and was unloading …. like a stuffed seahorse giving birth… spewing out toddler after toddler .   It was literally like a bus of midgets had escaped their holding pens.   Every now and then you would see a disheveled parent trying to wrangle the little menaces… trying to apply sunblock and gather up towels.   Having Jack so close to the park probably wasn’t the best decision on my part…not that Jack is aggressive or anything… it’s that these little window-lickers zeroed in on him like a detoxing meth-head.   Luckily their wrangler guided them toward the spray park and we were only bombarded with the fading sounds of ” puppy….puuuuuppy….dogggie…..dooooogggie”.

There are only a couple–maybe three types of people at a public spray park.   The first being families…second moms/baby-mommas and lastly  dads(dads with visitation) and baby-daddies.  The last two of these is what brought about this essay.   As one of the “dad” types got out of his car I heard him say “fuck” into his phone before hanging up.  His look was that of frustration and indignant retort.  For that split second my synapses fired off and I thought to myself ” wow… we are all sorta fucks arent we.  I mean…none of us got here any other way… we are the product of the “fuck”…so essentially we are all “fucks”.  As “dad” got his crew up to the fence and did the safety check before sending his two little ones into the biological battlefield I noticed a set of younger girls bringing their posse of tots to the DMZ.  Thats when I saw it.   The older of the two girls ( I say girls but obviously in their early 20’s) looked over and saw  “dad” making his final inspections.  She mouthed the words ” he’s hot” to the other girl who smiled and nodded.  The dad rose up as his two minions ran off toward oblivion.  ” Hey Girl” he said as he noticed the older girl….and started to walk toward them…his demeanor changing from the indignant phone guy to a suave slide and glide.   Mind you…neither of these people were what I would call… attractive.   He appeared to be in his late 20s still holding on to that flat brimmed hat and lil’ Jon dialect.  I’m sure he had probably said ” yeah” like 20 times to himself this morning alone.   The girls…  I would say… Robust.  Can guys say that?  I’m not body shaming..but there was added padding in places that would not make her Wrangler “husky” but both ladies were rotund.   I realized that this is how they do it now….how you meet people and date.   You take the products of your last relationships and throw them them into the communal biological cesspool as you try to hustle to copulate with another person under the guise of parental obligation—or fun… so you can get more fucks…and who doesn’t want more fucks in their life right?

Part 3–  Speed dating and this is my “boy”

Jack was laying next to me…licking his paw.  Jack has 3 toes on one paw due to an adventure he went on a few years back.  The toe tends to bother him from time to time–cold ice and hot pavement exacerbate it.  I reached down and looked at this paw–and although he protested–he allowed me to pick out the stuck gum there.   Kids and gum— little fucks.   I placated my canine friend with a hidden cheeseburger from my pack and all was well with the world.   As we were about to get a move on a well used impala drove up…. boom….boooomboooom…boom.  There is no other cliche that encompasses the spray park dating scene more accurately than a late 20’s baby daddy driving a mid 90s grand am pulling up to the scene with his kids in the back booming out mumble rap.    Our previous dad turned around as to see who was playing the music of his people…

” Hey, thats my boy” he stated to the ladies.   The skinny guy gets out of the maroon vehicle and adjusts his obviously too big wife beater.  “C’mon..les go” was his motivational speech to the two youngsters in the back seat.  I could still see their heads vibrating from the bass.  You wonder why your kid is hard of hearing–but you continue to “drop it like it’s hot” on full volume. Amazing.    The two little boys scramble out and one trips at the curb.  That instant “am I dead” look in his eyes before realizing everything is 5×5.  ( rule #1 of spray park club… you dont cry before getting to spray park club)   and off he goes.   ” Jordan…Jordan…tell ya brother his inhaler is in the car” yells dad no. 2…..and away Jordan went.   I’m sure dads words were some mumbled sounds that made no sense…the bass turning them all into charlie brown adult words— and if Jordans brother needed his inhaler… well… if he dies he dies.   Dad #2 approached Dad 1….and it happened  ” Ooohhh yeah…this is my boy Mike and his kids Jordan and Steven” –I knew there was a little lil’ John piloting this guy from the inside… if I can get him to say ” crunk” does a magic portal open to 2005.     Mike says hello to the girls…obviously the second girl was his intended meetup…   Speed dating.   Show up and blow up… Yeeeahh.

Jack is now just staring at me.  Stalactites of slobber are coming from his jowls.  I’m pretty sure he is sensing the other cheeseburger in my pack.  It’s time to go…I’ve lingered long enough and saw too much… or too little .  Seconds of my life I cant get back wasted on fucks.   So we head back to the Van  ( thats right…I drive a van… for those mobile fucks)….they are setting up for the Chippewa Water River Fest… I sit down with the back of the van doors open and pat Jack down with a towel.   Mmmmm… wet dog-mcdonalds cheeseburger smell.

Is this how we do it now?   We create opportunity  out of ignorance? The 4 people I had just observed all had kids…1 or 2… and were in the process of getting to the process of attempting to make more.    Personally, as a Fuck, I find it fucking hilarious. That there is no dichotomy to it…just randomness and absolute chaos. So sail on you children of Idiocracy….you Mikes and Lil’ Johns of the world.    May you spray as recklessly as the spray parks you let your little fucks frolic in… I will be here on the fringe… with my cigars… my booze… my pornhub and my cheeseburgers.

Shalom.

Back at it… bending words like a keyboard Jedi. (Btw..we have come so far technologically that auto correct ..or auto grammar…makes me capitalize Jedi)   I always have these pauses in writing during the summer months…I guess it’s because the need for exposure to radiation and bikinis has a larger pull on the lizard part of my brain.  I attempt to roast myself into a golden brown yard Nazi…(oh, more auto grammar capitalization…so Jedi and Nazi share some grammar equality… the collapse begins)

So I’ve never been a fan of the Beatles…well…a few songs here and there… and after the break up I have a few here and there also…but I’ve never been on the Beatles bandwagon.   I say that because I’m gonna go into a little Lennon stuff and it’s important not to get the point maligned.   Been caught in this mental loop of applying the lyrics to “Watching the Wheels” to many situations in my life.   Lyrically it’s not a complex song.. following a cadence that I can tap my hand on the bar to as I choke down a swig of amber colored enlightenment.  But somewhere I find myself giving Johns insights purchase in my synapses.  I’ve never seen “Frozen” but John was belting out “Let it go” long before Queen Elsa cashed that Disney check.  (–had to capitalize Disney… Nazi…Jedi…I’m seeing a trend)   I want to believe that Lennon was at a point in his life that he had that moment of clarity that we all long for… where the Bodhisattva pierces the veil of enlightenment.  That this was truth and all of the outside was just the static of existence..for a brief instance he had a compass and a map…and the path he drew were lyrics and music.  I’m a firm believe in music…it encompasses much of the human condition… love…pain…hurt…want…life and death.   One of my favorite places to write is in the bar.. being that guy sitting in a booth with a glass of whiskey and a pencil…or maybe a laptop if my fingers haven’t become drunken dancers on a scrabble board. A person can see all of those aforementioned milestones of life in a few nights of people watching.   You develop your own internal razor that cuts to the quick of peoples intent.

I have been thinking of writing a book. A collection of thoughts and stories.  When I was younger I used to push a pen around a notepad trying to tell a brown eyed girl how much I loved her…and when she left…how much I was hurting.   After all these years there is an old tattered briefcase of yellowing paper in my closet that cries out now and then.  Its youthful confusion has been asking for absolution for the past year and a half… it’s odd how the wheel of karma spins on so many levels–perhaps it’s more like the inner workings of a clock… tick tock…a spin here a winding spring there…meshing of choice and consequence playing out in a myriad of possibilities.  Someday your on the upswing…some days headed to the sixes.  Maybe I notice it more because I have the time– not bound by the daily obligations of normal life…no spouse…no kids…just my small 1 acre fiefdom here in Greendale township.   The Oil City Philosopher, ha….more like the Polebarn Hermit.   I don’t think I take any offense to that.   You may find it lonely…but solitude brings an envious freedom.  I don’t have to deal with the problems that many of you do…and I find that comforting.

I think people unknowingly undermine themselves. I think that’s why we get lost in the computer…the social media….the grass is greener.   We want to be OK…to be happy.   But seriously… does anyone know what the fuck that is?   Maybe Lennon did… for a second in watching the wheels… letting it all go ( fuck you, Elsa) …   So I’m gonna let it go…that shit I have been watching cause those wheels… the ones that make up Karma are gonna roll regardless and there is only so much you can do… I’m gonna get lost in the music… the radiation…the bikins….The wheels going round and round…the collapse.

See you in the ether…. Shalam…..