Whatchoo Lookin' At?

Through the beauty and power of facebook, I have become the girl who gets to explain where the last 10 years have gone.

Seriously. It was just easier to keep on moving and figure that the sweeping arm of the radar would never find me. It's not like I'd killed anybody or needed some kind of witness relocation work, I just needed to keep moving to push through.

People keep strolling into this life and tossin' their feet up onto my coffee table and asking how my kids are. I never thought I'd see 'em again. I'm bringing fresh drinks to some people who I've not met yet. I so didn't really expect the world to shrink down to the size of a postage stamp.

Then I try and summarize the last 10 years or so.

It's a kind-of captivatingly tragic story full of Machiavellian plots, bloodshed, loss of life and limb, polygamy, Swiss bank accounts, swat teams, the CIA, poor timing, unrequited love, six-fingered-father-killing bandits, babies, sex/drugs/rock'n'roll, eating with hobos by the river and cracking crab in 5-star restaurants. It's got all the twists and turns that we have come to expect in the course of a well-lived 2010 kinda life.

In the end I find myself trying to build the most consolidated version of what I've been up to that I've ever tried to build.

I dealt with an inordinate amount of death. I never saw that coming, I didn't think I had the patience. But, it's just how it worked out and I rose to the challenge every time. Plenty of people died on my clock and that is as it was supposed to be. I survived.

I cleaned out 17 garages in 8 states and held 13 garage sales. Apparently, I have a gift for helping people part with their stuff. I organize and alphabetize. I can speak enough Spanish to trade $600 for an air-conditioner and I understand the Dewey Decimal System on a fundamental level - this helps. I can also use a hand-held calculator to good effect. I have recycled enough stuff to fill a warehouse. 

I wrote a whole bunch of words. I wrote on napkins and on the Internet. I sold some words and didn't sell a whole bunch more. I am a writer. I'm a whole lot of other stuff too, but I am a writer just like I'm a white girl born in middle-American in the 60's with blue eyes. I am a trained journalist and rebel.

I've traveled through almost every state in America. Yea... I hitch-hiked from Craigslist mostly. Yea... I know it sounds dangerous, but I always did my research and made sure I wasn't catching rides with serial killers. It was my Off-The-Grid research period.

Seriously.
It worked out great for almost 30,000 miles worth of rides. There was that one time when it went real poorly, just outside Salt Lake City. But, I had a fork and I won. That was one of my last rides.

Apply the law of averages: I was safer doing this than bungee jumping. And, I'm still alive - so it must have been all good. I met some amazingly different people. I saw most of the country. I had some great meals.

I busked. I did street music in lots of big cities and smaller college towns. I sang on street corners and made enough bank to sometimes sleep in a really nice hotel and drink import beer and sometimes save up to buy a train ticket to somewhere else. I learned the secret science of the street performer and it worked out great.
I sang "You Are My Sunshine" 4.25 million times. I'm not proud.

From this endeavor, I often met people who 1) Needed their garage cleaned out, 2) Had a small child who wanted to learn how to play guitar, or 3) They were hungry and wanted to break bread. 

Usually, either No.1 or No. 2 would happen over a good meal. I met some amazing humans and stayed in some good and safe places.

I've watched so many families interact and survive and love and forgive and it's just been an invaluable trip. I've seen autism and dementia and MS and ALS, PMS, OCD, ADHD, (and every other currently popular acronym) and cancer. Lots and LOTS of cancer. And Methamphetamines, there is lots of Meth out here hiding in the most unexpected places.

I served as a cheerleader for the underdog. I sold-out to enterprises needing good words. I create spin. I've written and learned about a lot of things. Some of those things were agenda-driven. Some of them were not.

That is what I've been up to for the last ten years. I still haven't been able to break it down to a 3-minute-elevator rap, but there's still time.

(I would be remiss if I didn't admit to also being a hovering, satellite parent. Over the last ten years, a big part of my time has been devoted to being a parent. Albeit, an unconventional parent, I am here because I wanted to make sure they were eating right. The orbit I have in cyberspace was born of an innate need to know how my kids are. So, I've been here. Doing this.)