A Citizen of Earth

On the second full moon of the new year of 1975, there was another fateful knock on my door. Captain Goosebag was looking for a partner for an overnight cross-country ski trip.

I should tell you right away that I was probably not his first choice as companion on such an adventure.

You can readily imagine that anyone called Captain Goosebag, lauded far and wide as such a daring mocker of authority, would normally have nothing to do with Peabody, who had only the doubtful fame of cracking eggs for The Man. I was a lot steadier on a horse than I was on downhill skis, and I had nothing in the way of cross-country equipment.

But the balance was tipped by my one good trait: I was the sole person on the floor with the next two days off.

Continue reading “The Adventures of Captain Goosebag & Peabody ..”

In a previous post, where I listed adventures I’ve had, and adventures I plan to have, I mentioned briefly “Go cross-country skiing under the full moon (I almost died)” as one of my past adventures.

Rev. BigDumbChimp said “I’d like an explanation here.”

So here it is:

Living in Houston in 1974, I had a secure job and the seeds of a career track: work a year, go to college for a year. Major in animal science or biology, get a degree in genetics, go to Vet school, become a horse doctor.

So when my old pal Mark showed up at my door one fall day, I should have been out, or failed to answer the door, or said no. But none of those things happened.

I opened the door. And Mark said “Hi! I’m going to hitchhike out to California and get a job at a ski resort! Wanna go?”

Continue reading “The Adventures of Captain Goosebag & Peabody .”

I stumbled across the title phrase of this post today, and Googled it. I found several lists and scrolled through them.

One of them was all “Go watch the Masters golf tournament,” and “Sit ringside at Madison Square Gardens for a boxing match,” and “See the Tour de France in person,” and it just seemed like most of it was a lot of shit you’d do to impress other people, instead of having an adventure exclusively for your own self.

I mean … golf?? City stuff? Crowds? Sheeeeit. I pass.

I’ve been making lists like this most of my life, and MY list has almost nothing in common with this dopey faux-cool list.

Speaking of trying to impress other people, it may sound like it for a moment here, but I hope that’s not what I’m doing. I am proud of some of the things I’ve done, and I like relating them. But I’ve also found that, most of the time, other people don’t really care too much about such stories. Maybe it’s because I’m not very good at telling them; maybe it’s because I look like a short little nobody and it’s hard for people to believe I’ve done some of this stuff.

Anyway, here comes the brag, if that’s what it is. At the age of 55, I’ve done this:

Continue reading “Xen-Living: 50 Things To Do Before I Die”

I’m new at this meme thing, but I’m gonna try it anyway.

The way the thing works, you ask a question or issue a challenge to a small number of blogging friends, not only to respond but to tag other bloggers with the question/challenge, to get them, in turn, to respond and tag still others. 

Any non-blogger who reads here, if you also want to answer, I’m interested in that too.

So here it is:

Tell the story of a (non-surgical) scar you have somewhere on your body. Answer and tag three other bloggers.

My own answer:

Continue reading “Scar Story”

Thinking about a commenter on another blog I read, a fellow so aggressively obtuse he could piss off Mother Teresa. Rather than post this there, where he can whine that I’m being unfair to poor, poor him, I’m putting it here:

I think all of us know intuitively that every conversation (or relationship) contains an unstated agreement something like “Allow me some of your time and attention, and I’ll deal with you fairly.”

Continue reading “Armchair analyst”

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