with possibility of tornados coming through, everyone's on edge, me especially. dashing has been thin lately, with either not enough business or way too many dashers, and i suspect the latter - but life is busy and no time to get another job or do one of many things that could supply the income in one form or another. the dashing will pick up though with the weekend and bad weather i'm sure.

my little computer is having trouble with its s- key and d- key. since i mostly use it to cruise around the web, read the news, check my marketing stats etc. it's not such a big issue except late at night when i want to play online boggle, and some games are just a wash because they have too many s's and d's. i'll have to get the keyboard fixed but in the meantime i'm a little frustrated.

then i get on there early this morning to check the news and two marketers i've befriended check in. one is nigerian and one is from miami but living in LA. both love to talk and engage etc. but the s-key and the d=key mean i have to avoid words that use them, because especially with the d i can press and press and nothing happens. eventually i have to tell them and just get off facebook. time to get kids off to school anyway.

with the bad weather rolling in i'm thinking of hiding cars in the garage all day but i signed up for a dash in monmouth and i'll probably take it. good or bad weather, get out there and take fast food to people. people need to eat. as bad as the fast food is for their health, it at least keeps them going to another day, and this goes for my son too who lives on complete garbage and has for years now. i've bben unable to do anything about it and now my life is a combination of dashing for money and dashing for him. a lot of dashing going on.

the first marketer i befriended because i didn't know that friending people was a marketing ploy. she hustled me unsuccessfully, but then she went out of business, lost her home, had to give her kids to someone, and ended up on the street for a while, but now she's found jesus and seems to have a church community that is keeping her afloat. i stay in touch with her as friends because i know that when you're on the street you need that connection with anybody and at least she's getting on facebook and checking in regularly, whatever the circumstances of her instability, the marketers all seem to have that in common. to be a marketer they have to come on all professional and have a slick webpage, etc., and many of them use words like "collaborate" in their pitch like you're going to get right down in there with them and help them spend your money. in fact they don't have any more or better tricks than i do to get my book out there but they are like sharks in the sense that when they sense weakness or blood, like you might give in, they can be relentless. i don't care. i make it clear i won't give them any money and then if they still want to be friends that's ok. that's why i have these two and only these two left, besides the woman, who is no longer a marketer.

at the little house kids started in on the junk, throwing it around, moving it, throwing tools into buckets full of junk, that kind of thing. one kid ripped out a flimsy window covering so now it's partly exposed to the elements. i quickly grabbed up all my tools and put them in my car where they wouldn't be so quick to grab them. the problem is that they'll use some of them as weapons in their play as they are a bunch of rowdy kids who don't care much for school and have a lot of built up frustration and rage against the world and everyone in it. give them a small shed full of crap and they'll just throw it all around - they don't know what else to do with it. and i'm not sure i have time to show them.

in the house they moved out of, there are six broken windows and three broken doors. one of the doors ended up outside where it was ruined by weather. lots of glass ended up out there too. it turns out they know how to break it better than how to clean it up.

slowly i need to teach them how to respect stuff and take care of their humble shed. ir's an old railroad house, two stories high, well built originally but with so many windows busted out it's fallen into some disrepair over the last 90 or 100 years. if i think about it i can see how boys in their condition would light out into it like kids in a playhouse but there's almost nothing i can do about that - i'm not going to be over there every minute.

such is life. the tornados roll in, or whatever weather this storm carries. i go out to dash and clean up an old house and a shed. the marketers are out there circling their prey. some things go toward chaos. others are recorded in perhaps a futile attempt to understand them while other people do drastic things just to maintain some dignity. life goes on.

there's snow of all things, and plenty of it, and the whole thing leaves me so chilled all i can do is sit here under my blanket drinking another cup of coffee. the dogs don't even want to go outside, and my little feather would rather just pee and poop in our bathroom than chill his little fanny out in the cold snow. and he does, because he's spoiled.

i went to chicago on monday to move my oldest son, who was moving from brimfield, a small town near here, to a tiny little apartment on belmont avenue. it was very exciting and i had to do it just to be there when he did it. he's actually been back from school in new mexico for about four months, and he's been working, so he has the money both to get into the place, and for a tank of gas and my lunch, throw in my other son too. there was both a sox game and a cubs game, so that made a traffic nightmare getting out of town, but even while we were there on belmont avenue it was quite busy and no place to park for any of the diners in the area. we were all going to meet in a local diner on belmont but it just wasn't possible, no place to park anywhere within two miles of wrigley.

the cubs, while we were moving, apparently had a good opening day, but it was in the rain and everyone got a little soaked. as for us we parked the van in the loading zone and didn't have that far to walk. the apartment was very small and we filled it up in a minute. i figured out why the poor kid was sorting even pieces of paper before we moved, trying to consider as little as possible to be 'necessary'. but he claims he's very happy there and happy to be in a permanent place.

i am slowly settling into a doordash routine where i work late nights. there are several reasons but the main one is that dasher always has 'dash now' at night and one can rarely get it earlier, when apparently everyone wants to work. at night i find the house addresses harder to read though i'm getting better at getting the information off the app itself which is not always right. i'm also tired at night; i still wake up early and do all my book stuff from early in the morning.

you'd think with the new month there would be victorious celebration; after all i am turning seventy this month and i should be celebrating just being alive. instead i'm kind of tired and hiding under this blanket. proud of that son, though, he launched, and he is where he wants to be.

there's a wild kind of purple weed that grows well in lawns people don't take much care of, including ours, and this lavender purple color is all over town now, especially out on the edge of the cornfields that ring around the edge of town. i had forgot it was easter, but i was enjoying that purple color on the lawns as i went out on the breakfast run for my son.

he's disabled and we don't expect him to work, but the problem is that he's attracted some other disabled kids and now the t dollars we're willing to spend on junk every day has to be split, and also he has an enormous appetite for sugar in the morning. so i'm a little dreading trying to put the ten dollar limit on him when i know how hungry he is and how those kids are on him, and, because i'm not in the mood, i don't hassle him. he ends up with about twelve dollars most of which is cheetos, the currency of youth. he's not in a great mood either.

one squirrel has trouble crossing the street on the way, and another, when i arrive at his house, is half black, half brown, but lost his tail. it's a cold morning, cold and wet, promise of rain but with that chill that will chill your bones. i remember thirteen easter campouts in a row when it rained and we finally gave up having campouts on easter even though the sunrise was really fine. in my religious times it's a really fine holiday as spring is arriving whether it is cold and rainy or not. there is that whole divine resurrection thing too but i don't get all deeply into the theology of it, only to say i don't generally believe in the symbolism of buying thirty bucks worth of chocolate and little stuffed-animal or live bunnies. i'm a rabbit myself and to me a certain amount of that is abuse of the live rabbits, and i don't enjoy chomping off the heads of the chocolate ones either.

i did however agree that my wife could buy a basket for our daughter because she also doesn't want to have the whole egg-dying paz experience, yet she wants her daughter to feel she had something. in a way my grinchy self (look at me, begrudging a broke and starving teen some cheetos in the morning) doesn't believe in splurging for thirty bucks of chocolate junk just for a symbolic present-sugar-christmas type experience. don't we have enough of that? don't these kids get enough chocolate? i'd forgot to even mention that it was easter to my son, yet when i came back home i remembered that i'd left that basket for my daughter in the car, where i'm sure my wife found it as she drove off this morning; she hesitated when she got out of the garage and i didn't see why, as i was shutting the garage door.

the problem is that she was taking with her, the enormous and over-enthusiastic puppy, who wakes up in the morning dying to play and run around and chew up stuff, she got a friend to meet her at the nature preserve where both dogs can tear around to their heart's content and it will wear him out a little though not much. yesterday he tore around all day and never seemed to run out of steam even at the end.

so anyway now i'm sure she hesitated, on the way out of the garage, because she realized she would be driving around with this huge dog and all this chocolate out in the country and she'd have to somehow control him and drive at the same time. hah!

as for me, i saw two homeless guys in the grass off near the caseys, and a woman walking down the street talking and gesturing to no one, so i kind of had an urban experience though this is a small town with literally weeds growing through all the cracks. it's hard to see the glorious resurrection of our savior though i'm sure we need it, most especially those starving kids off in the house that's a little too big for them. the daughter, she'll appreciate the gesture even if the big basket comes back destroyed by the dog. the dog might not survive the chocolate though and that might be the key to my wife's worry. i didn't see it at the time. she thought she was saving herself some trouble by buying a simple (but large) basket structure but yet there was some trouble involved.

happy easter - he has risen!

memories

original photo by Tugi Tugiyanto

there's a new normal. i work a lot, door-dashing. my job takes me around town and to knoxville, and sometimes wataga or alexis. i see the town and countryside. already i recognize some of the homeless.

i prefer to get done with it as soon as possible, but ironically door-dashing is inversely more productive the longer you wait. tonight i got as much in a single hour at dinner time than i got in the entire day of hanging on my phone and running out there when i could. morning, spotty, noon, a little better, afternoon, spotty. the evenings are really hot but i suspect the kids have moved in to take all the good spots because often i can't even get on there and dash in the evening.

i see a lot of the fast-food places. i've been in wendy's maybe a dozen times. today i hung around perkins for a half-hour - it was as good as hanging around eating something. having set foot in these places i'm getting a better sense of which kitchens are producing the good stuff.

i've always liked this about galesburg: it's large enough to be self-absorbed, but too small to really amount to much. on the surveys they ask me urban? rural? suburban? it's definitely not suburban but it's a close tie between the other two, and i actually fluctuate; they probably think i'm bogus. when i got here i considered it urban. the more i know the more i consider it rural. the country starts just out every edge. then it's corn and beans for miles.

the job connects me with a chunk of youth that i spent out on the roads, in that the constant movement and failure to stay anywhere are somewhat comforting. sometimes i feel like stretching out in my car and taking a big nap, with the sound of the highway right out the window, and letting the feeling of world-going-by give me peaceful dreams. we are not far from a major interstate and sometimes my siri tells me to get right on it and go down the road to knoxville, a small town near galesburg. knoxville is very friendly and very pretty, and i've come to enjoy it when i'm dashing out there. the dash will swat me around out there for a while, going from place to place, and if i finish out there i take the slow road back to galesburg across the fields that of course are beginning to show a little green. it's all very springtime out there.

then, in the sports bars like buffalo wild wings or applebee's there are the hawkeyes on television, and soon it will be the ncaa's so i'll have to have a bracket. i'm also putting some time into the front yard because i'm coming and going from the front a lot more.

in general, another season, a fresh start. it's good to be alive, though working makes me a little sore.

ok here's a wild development. i've become a door-dash driver. financial desperation set in when we noticed we were spending more supporting one son's extra house than we actually made every month, so i went back to work.

and much to my surprise, i love it. there are several reasons. first is that building frustration and anxiety over vast spending of money we didn't have was driving me crazy. we were running through our retirements and nest eggs and all in the hopes that we could get out of raising these last kids ok (no easy way out, unfortunately). now i'm doing something about it. having my own income gives me a little autonomy and a much better feeling day-in day-out of having some control of my destiny. i feel young again.

that's the second reason; i'm connected to my youthful, live-for-the-moment traveling days, when i might go here or there at any given moment, and i feel really alive with all the choices. i can travel more or i can stop. there are benefits to each. i am making money traveling. i see the city and at the same time, just pass through it.

there's this little town near here, knoxville. door dash keeps sending me out there. i have a kind of fascination with the smaller towns and they are definitely different from galesburg. in galesburg it's no big surprise when someone doesn't know me. in knoxville they just kind of don't believe it. it's interesting. i'm seeing some farm country on the trips between towns and i like that too. i like getting out there and seeing people, if nothing else.

third reason: it's just about right for amount of human interaction. i can talk more if i like someone. they often are avoiding me (leave it at my door) and i don't blame them. the workers in the fast-food places are all interesting too but i say very little to them besides thank-you-ma'am (ma'am & sir are somewhat rare here but i just came up from the south where they're not). a slice of life. i'm in a lot of places in any given day.

it's life - a rich tapestry. the brick streets are a good drum solo.

like your average working man i come to friday with a sense of relief - i made my money, i get to rest now. friday evening traffic is a little edgier than most nights and it's a good night to get off the street in my humble opinion. I did well in my new job (door dash) and now i'm worn out and need to set and sleep a little. things are busy - a lot of dashing could be done - but i'm not doing it, rather staying home, puppy on lap, reflecting.

in general i find evenings much more lucrative in the doordash biz. people pay more for dinner, have it hauled farther, and pay better tips. In the mornings i'm hauling big macs across town for two bucks, no tip, in the evening i'm taking a better dinner way out to knoxville and another one back, and making more on tips from that alone than from the morning jaunts. not that we're talking big money. and the car is going to wear out, and the gas will eat up the profits. but i'm in the groove at the moment and glad to be able to create a couple hundred bucks with what's left of my worn-out knees and legs.

it causes all kinds of changes to the writing biz. for one thing, i have much less patience for reading random indie writing, when i have piles of things to do, money to make, a full plate of responsibilities. reading was a luxury i can no longer afford. i have to focus my attention on making money and allocating our resources so that we don't go broke. my wife has thrown up her hands and begged for my help in this and i've responded by first, figuring out how to make $140-$250/wk. driving around, and second, going through the budget and figuring out what we can cut. It will be a slow but painful process and I may find other ways of raising money. but from the writing point of view, i may have to write things that sell as opposed to things I like, like history. my days of indulging in family history may be over too.

all this happened just as i was deep in the writing process, following the leverett family through the civil war - they were in nebraska and illinois at the time - and i couldn't just set it down. instead i'll probably finish it in some form or another and publish soon, hopefully in march. but after that i'll lean toward things that make money - novels actually do the best - and write more of that kind, if i can bring myself to do it. unfortunately the more i force stuff like that on myself, the less successful i am, generally. it might be better to let myself do what i want.

my wife is suffering terrible back pain. we are getting old. this idea of getting our kids out of the house has just about wiped her out. i am going to try to hang in there for everyone's good, though. i may have to see her through some rough times here pretty soon.

one thing about getting old is being aware of your limits. there are things that we can do but probably shouldn't. we took on ten children and did the best we could with them, and now finally, we look back on a long and rocky trail. they have to be able to manage without us. this will be easier for some than for others.

outside, firetrucks and ambulances just went by, northbound, screaming. i went out to look but they were already out of sight; whatever it was, was way out north. i've given up my reading for the night. i did well with driving, not so well with writing my history book; maybe that will happen some more tomorrow. a little push won't hurt, and a good night's sleep.

i went back to work. got set up and started door dash last week; made $140 in about four days. that was actually good pay but i was new at it, new at figuring out how to maximize time and money. hopefully it will become easier.

lots of new material out there on the streets of galesburg. now i talk to everyone - especially people who work in the restaurants - and i'm beginning to know them. i'm beginning to feel like part of the working culture of the town, instead of an old retired geezer over her puttering on my books. it's an interesting feeling.

the danger will be if i wear myself out, and can no longer do it.

with calamities everywhere - i'm out there making twenty bucks, and each of my children is wasting fifty - plus bills piling up for the work we had done on the two houses - we are in new times, very tight, a new depression.

but i'm out there a lot. i'm seeing the town. i'll have stories to tell.

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three or four days now on a thick fog that has kind of come and gone, but mostly made visibility difficult. i said to my wife, "it looks like an old fleetwood mac album out there," but the reference was lost to her. We are in the same generation, but clearly not of the same musical leanings. a lot of my friends know exactly what album i'm talking about.

i am grateful to not have to leave galesburg, where i can see the streetlights through the fog and i don't kneed to see that much else besides the car in front of me. out in the mountains when it got this bad i felt like the cliffs and canyons were going to swallow me whole.

i've been working a little on my disney stories - in fact if i can finish "have a magical day" i can name it "have a magical day - and a dozen other short stories from the house of mouse." i'm mulling that over as a full title - and mulling over stopping at thirteen. it would be a small book that way - like the walmart book - seventy pages or so. mulling it over, i said.

i lost a little weight there for a little while, with all that running around and everything - but in the end, i got it all back again. something about the cold and long winter nights sitting here at my chair - i've been eating too many snacks. ah well. right back to where i started. and that's the end of january for ya.