Lunchtime Brew

Sat down in my favorite park at lunchtime eating cheese on wheat crackers and nursing a gigantic bottle of Colt 45. When I walked into the convenience store to buy the beer, I felt as if I was trespassing -- as if they were going to tell my father. Sins and transgressions. It's a very small town I live in. It was all rather disconcerting to feel such a way. I keep telling myself that I am thirty-five years old and buying beer is perfectly legal and acceptable. They did check my identification because I look so young which I found reassuring and comforting in a strange way.

One of our local crack heads was sitting on the convenience store's wall directly above a no loitering sign when I walked out. The irony made me smile and chuckle.

"Got a buck?" He asked, watching me with yellow tinged eyes and scratching the stark white whiskers on his chin. I recognized him from when I worked at Autozone as a manager. He has a talent for rebuilding carburetors which is almost a lost art in this day and age of fuel injection.

"Sorry man," I said as I kept on walking to my favored spot. I wasn't feeling very generous today. My one track mind was too intently focused on escaping to my favorite spot and enjoying my liquid lunch.

It was so comforting to be sitting in my favorite park -- the warm sun shining down on me. The pigeons cooing softly and the noise of squirrels busily gnawing on this year's acorns. The vibrantly green grass stretched out like some carefully manicured carpet. Tall, hundred year old oaks standing guard over me and sheltering me from the wind and sunburn. I watched intently, the cars on the nearby highway, as I drank my beer and listened to a burned compact disc of old Coast to Coast AM radio shows -- that alcohol soothing my frayed and worn nerves. I was in heaven if there is such on thing on this God's earth.

I am missing Rosa today. We talked on the phone for a short while earlier with her reminding me to take my morning dosage of my anti-depressant. I was taking them at night, but they kept me up -- wired like some speed addict. I am not used to us being apart, but we both agreed on having more "alone time" as we were spending all our waking hours together. "Absence makes the heart grown fonder," were Rosa's cliched words. It has also served to lift a great deal of pressure I had felt bearing down on me. The only way to describe the feeling is that it feels like freedom. Something I have sorely missed. The freedom to go camping at night and to stay up late without feeling so guilty all the time.

Rosa is lottery obsessed and was talking about buying some tickets. "What would you do with a couple million bucks?" she asked me.

"I would invest it and live off the interest and would buy me some land, live in a tent, and have a huge garden filled with vegetables. I would like to live like an American Indian. I would be one of those crazy survivalists you read about in gun and ammo magazines."

"What? No new Porsche? No ridiculously grand house?" Rosa asked, astonished.

"That stuff wouldn't make me happy," I replied honestly. "I am not very materialistic."

"You're nuts," Rosa said, chuckling.

I laughed as well, but it was the truth. I am coming to the conclusion that a life that is too easy causes me to become lax and complacent. Lazy. I seem to need some hardships to invigorate me and spur my creativity. I thrive in situations such as wilderness survival, homelessness, and the arduous strife that can be my mental illness un-medicated. Like Atlas bearing the weight of the world, these are my burdens to carry and only then, by carrying them, am I a complete and whole human being.

I threw the advertisements back up a moment ago -- just for a few more days to try and get up the funds to buy a very nice camera. I've already made $1.25 in the hour I put them back up so I am off to a good start. I look forward to sharing my views of the world again upon this blog with videos and pictures.