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.