Fan Mail

Thanks for all the comments and emails. I don't have time to respond to all of them individually because I'm super busy entertaining myself with this blog. However, since there was so much repetition in the reader feedback I thought I'd answer those questions in this general blog entry.

1) Yes, I think death-wish can be hyphenated or not. Either way, I don't consider my trip to be one. While I do not fear the reaper, I do not intentionally seek him out or taunt him by making it known that his scythe will, at best, scratch the kevlar on my backup riding jacket.

2) No, it is not merely a rumor that my therapist recently abandoned me and moved to Hawaii because of something I probably said or probably my personality. I'm not insecure about this because I'm very strong, so they say all the time, and don't need her anymore but I would like her to take me back. No biggie though, whatever you want. I don't have another therapist because I don't NEED one and she was getting more out of it than ME people where saying. But if you know where she is, no biggie, maybe you could tell me but I don't care I mean or anything you know. No big deal though so whatever CLARISSA DAMMIT. Nice 'phoenix rising' on your business card. Like that is not cliche for a psychotherapist. Hope that didn't take you too long to come up with!! Phd in Marketing NOT! What Ever. Have a nice TAN in Hawaii. Not even WORKING probably. But I'm cool with it. Really miss you (a lot). Not good with change and loss. LOL! WTF!! Not cool.

3) And furthermore LARISSACAY AMMITZAY, the therapist you referred me to is so mad at you for leaving that all she does is talk about you which is WEIRD so even though she is really CHEAP compared to you it's not really WORTH IT because it's like I'm the therapist AGAIN. Not working!. NICE TRY THOUGH. Is it far to Hawaii and where do you live?

4) No, the fact that I do not have a return itinerary does not mean I'm not coming back Jenny. I will post one as soon as I'm on my way home.

5) No, I will not stop and give a shout-out to your friend while I'm traveling through Flagstaff.

6) Yes, I do think staying at the Bellagio is an important part of my soul seeking journey and yes I will bring you something from the gift shop as long as it will fit in my trunk.

7) Yes, the main reason is to save money on gas.

8) Yes, I do know that the new season of 'So You Think You Can Dance' will start while I'm gone and don't threaten me with the Tivo which is mine anyway because I probably had it BEFORE I met you so it doesn't even count towards your half so you are not in charge of it anyway.

9) I think 'don't spread Leigh's ashes prematurely on the highway' is an odd way to express your concern but I do understand your subtle meaning and I plan to take preventive actions using ducktape and other ballistic counter measures. lol. rofl. wtf. etc.

10) Yes I will miss you, except for The Farting, but I'm really glad that I'm doing this on my own. I'm pretty needy (shocker!) and could really grow personally by being by myself for like more than 90 seconds.

11) Hey, this isn't really an answer to a question I've made up but could you like make sure YOUR children stay out of MY office because I'm VERY important and I could have important papers or might have important information that may look like it's in a pile or messy but really it's there for a reason like I have a special way of stacking stuff and I don't expect you to be able to tell the difference between a stack of important person stuff and what goes to the SHREDDER but just keep them out for me because it's my office and they steal my pens and get footprints on my faxes that are waiting for my attention in the stacks I was just telling you about. And just because I'm not THERE to make sure, they should still not make a lot of NOISE near my office because they will think is ALRIGHT to dot it when I get BACK because they will be used to being LOUD while I'm working and you can't tell when I'm working and when I'm just reading SALON.COM or emailing my MOTHER but since you can't tell the difference just be quiet ALL THE TIME to ensure you are not bothering me if I'm doing important things or people need my input on things ALL THE TIME because I'm critical.

12) No, the t-shirt you got me that says "If you can read this, my bitch fell off" will not arrive on time for trip. "Where there is sin, I must follow" t-shirt arrived. All set for gear now.

13) No, Dirk is not the gnome from the Travelocity commercials and I did not photoshop him into the picture.

Travel Recipe

Gather following ingredients:

1 Harley Davidson Road Glide
2 Exhaust Pipes
1 Bootleg Fuel Control Module
1 Global Positioning System
1 Back Brace
300 Aspirin
2 Riding Jackets
1 Pair Riding Pants
4 Pair Socks and Underwear
1 MacBook Pro
1 Video Camera that Takes Stills
1 Black Plastic Box
1 Wooden Box

Start by removing the faring and windshield from the Road Glide to install Global Positioning System. Put socks on turn signals. Put sheet over tank and under bike and over front fender. Take off windshield. Try to find place to set it down and realize there is none. Balance windshield on knee and make place to set it down. Decide to unfold a card table because many parts are involved. Start removing parts and place neatly on card table. Remove parts until card table is full and then look for other places to put rest of parts. Remove all screws, nuts and bolts that can be viewed without putting knee on ground where there is dirt. Do not react to alarmed look from New Wife. The GPS needs electricity. Do not scratch any parts. Observe that Harley Davidson owners are particular about this and if parts are scratched they must be chrome plated. New Wife should ask why you need another GPS. Explain that third GPS is made necessary due to specific operating environment of motorcycle. Recall words on packaging to justify position such as ‘left hand controls’ and ‘vibration resistant’. New Wife will accept this information because of reason for trip**. Look at all the wires in the faring. See if any are not being used. Realize that it is unlikely that bike manufacturer would put wires on bike that attached to nothing. Spot cigarette lighter and consider the relative advantage of breaking it in the course of installing GPS instead of fuel gauge or headlamps. Wisely choose to attach GPS wires to cigarette lighter wires. Attach red wire on GPS to red wire on cigarette lighter. Other wire on GPS will not match color of other wire on cigarette lighter. Do not care about this. Turn on bike. GPS will come on which means that described configuration is possibly OK.

Put parts back on bike. Rubber part that fell off is not important. Notice that it does not seem to go anywhere. Put in pocket and forget about part. Admire how you carefully laid screws down on card table in order you removed them because they are not all the same size. Notice how piling parts on card table has re-organized screws. Continue guessing about order of parts and screws. Notice how easy plastic screw and brass nuts will strip. Order part #$!@^%&*! to replace stripped parts. Do not know how to put windshield back on. Spend two (2) hours trying to figure this out and then consult Internet. Internet says do not take windshield off but if you do then go buy part #$!@^%&*! and then put it back together.

After bike is mostly back together, drive to Harley-Davidson dealership to look at similar bike. Pretend to shop for new motorcycle and pay special attention to fairing and windshield. Notice how much tighter fairing and windshield seem on new bike. Wonder if water will get inside it on trip and cause mayhem. Make note to self to have checked by qualified person.


Observe that when at traffic light and in traffic that bike is very hot. Feel that you are a potato and you will be done soon. Hope that your strategically placed holes will allow heat to escape from baking internal organs so you do not explode in traffic. Wonder about how heat will feel when driving in desert next week. Recall that forecast calls for 90+ degree heat. Drive to different bike shop and ask ‘Dirk’ about heat. Admit to just buying Harley and not knowing anything. Dirk will be polite to face. Listen as Dirk explains that Harley-Davidson has to comply with California Smog Emission Standards and to do this they have leaned the fuel mixture, restricted airflow and put on small tail pipes. Nod when Dirk offers to fix motorcycle heat issue by blowing out engine with big fat pipes, monster air filter and outlaw fuel control module that will pour gasoline in engine and make baby ride real cool. Ask Dirk about loudness of bike and explain desire to not degrade relationship with neighbors one mile down road. Believe Dirk when he tells you loudness is ‘no-factor’ and bike will only be ‘twice as loud’. Believe Dirk when he tells you daddy will like it when he hits throttle on open road with new monster performance package. Believe Dirk when he tells you that this will not affect warranty. Tell Dirk you are leaving in four (4) days and will need monster performance package right away. Ask Dirk if he will be available by cell phone if monster bike has problem in middle of desert. Note that Dirk only works three (3) days a week. Make note to self to bring at least four (4) days of water into desert. Decide that 406EPRIB emergency locator beacon essential part of 'performance package'. Notice how large and yellow 406EPRIB is. Wonder how many things can be taped to same wire as cigarette lighter. Recall experience with removing faring. Change mind so other riders do not think owner of bike with yellow plastic 406EPRIB is a pussy.

Pack bike. Consider how much bike shakes. Wonder about effect of shaking bike on MacBook Pro. Resign self to buying new MacBook Pro en-route. Buy extended warranty this time with new MacBook Pro. Pack video camera because it can take still pictures. Do not bring other camera. Other camera is most prized possession. Realize that you would worry about it breaking if you crash. Realize then that you are really concerned about camera and not so concerned about self crashing. Feel like bad mother fucker for not giving shit about crashing Harley. Then realize that you are a fairy-nerd for worrying so much about camera. Still do not bring good camera. Pack both motorcycle jackets to avoid questions from New Wife about why second jacket was purchased. Pack back brace. Realize that you will need it. Consider carpal tunnel syndrome and how much ride will hurt. Bring aspirin. Realize that is how you roll.

Pack black plastic box with First Wife's atoms securely on bike. Pack atoms of best dog Scarlet on bike. Recognize that this is most precious cargo. Drive carefully as debt is owed to First Wife, First Wife's Family, bike owner's Family and New Wife and Step Children. Still do not bring good camera.

Leave on five thousand mile trip day after major work is done on bike. Trust that all will be well. Plan on extra time en-route for unplanned maintenance.

** [footnote 1a] Make liberal use of sadness New Wife feels for you. Purchase Kevlar armored riding gear and weatherproof camping baggage. New Wife is not dumb and she will recall that you just told her two weeks ago that no money could be spent due to over extending finances. New Wife will not say anything because of sadness situation mentioned above. Pushing luck is OK however do put items away when UPS truck leaves.

Thoughts On Going

I’m not flying on a commercial airline to Vermejo because it would be too fast and too direct. I could go on the web, buy a ticket, show up the airport for an on-time departure, rent a car, drive to Vermejo, meet my family, spread Leigh’s ashes and leave. Instead, I’m procrastinating. I’m taking the longest route I could come up with and still make the claim that I’m heading in the right direction. I’m passing through interesting places on the way so I have some reason to get closer each day besides the terminus. I’m hoping to exhaust myself with the journey so I will wish to just get there. This is currently not the case.

I don’t want to go. I don’t want to spread Leigh’s ashes. It is final. In practical terms, there is nothing more final than what has already happened to her. There is nothing more final than what has happened to her and the life we shared. She is, however, in my closet. What remains of her physical matter is in a black plastic box in my closet.



I’ve been reading a lot in the last two and a half years about particle physics and cosmology. These subjects, like a good scotch, take the edge off of what happened.

At the cosmic level, none of us matter. Nothing we do, say, feel or think matters to the universe. This is a comforting thought to me. We are the tiniest bits of irrelevance that could possibly exist. We are here for a millionth of a billionth of a zillionth of a second on the cosmic timeline. So what if I lasted a zillionth of a smillionth of a second longer than Leigh? We were essentially around for the same inconsequential amount of non-time. The universe breathed in, we came, and then it breathed out and we left. Sadly, she sooner than I but both of us where exhaled without much cosmic thought or purpose.

And even better, at the atomic level, nothing ever changes and nothing ever goes away. Matter is conserved. Matter is difficult to destroy. Humans have little sway over the breaking of strong atomic bonds. In my mind, I can imagine the cooperative arrangement of atoms that was Leigh. I can see all those electrons zipping around all those protons and neutrons. I know that the box in my closet is full of those very exact same atoms. Some of them are missing. Some of them have already been set loose by the process of death on their journey through the cosmos. We humans think of ourselves as adventuresome but our mortal adventures are poor little impotent treks compared to the riotous time our atoms will have before their energy has been depleted. Albert Einstein, in the greatest thought a man ever thunk, explained this to us. Unfortunately for us, he was interviewed by a sports journalist (who, no shit, specialized in Golf journalism) who put out the misconception that we where all too stupid to understand what Albert had to say. This notion stuck so we all just didn't bother. Albert said E=mc2. He said Energy is mass and mass is Energy and mass has so much Energy that you are going to crap in your drawers once your realize how much. He said, in fact, that the amount of Energy contained in matter is like so big you should think of a really big big number like the speed of light or something (that is what the c is for) and then, to make it even bigger, you should go ahead and multiply it by itself. Multiply that super-giganto number by the amount of mass you have and that is how much Energy is contained in it. Each of us are walking around with the power of 15 nuclear bombs worth of energy in the mass of our bodies. That is what he said. He wasn't saying that Energy is exactly equal to mc2. He was sort of just making a point.

My point is that Leigh is all powerful and for all practical purposes she is eternal. The largest stockpile of Leigh's atoms is buzzing around at incomprehensible speeds in a black plastic box in my closet demanding freedom so they can go do their eternal thing. At the cosmic level, we all matter.

I do wish that Leigh’s atoms would have cooperated a zillionth of a second longer. It feels wrong to me that they did not. We’ve all heard, to the point of annoyance, that life is not fair. Yet, I think we all go looking for evidence that it is and reject evidence that it is not. We feel better when we imagine that karmic justice has been served, when hard work pays off and when good things happen to good people. We tend to ignore, forget or not compute when the kid from the local high school gets struck dead by a drunk driver. I think, if you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed how random it all is. It’s awesomely random. And the universe is full of Irony. How Ironic is it that our atoms are virtually indestructible while we ourselves are so ephemeral? How about when we think that ‘fair’ is when everything goes our way when in fact ‘fair’ would mean that it only went our way about half the time? And isn’t it Ironic that so many people see god’s intentions clearly when he causes a poor family’s lotto ticket to have a wining number but the same people can only quietly mumble about the mysteriousness of god’s plan when he gives a two year old pancreatic cancer? So I guess life might be fair after all. And if I believed in god, I would say to him that you are so funny I forgot to laugh. And he would probably say to me that I should lighten up. And I would then tell him what huge dick he is being.

I need to let Leigh’s atoms re-sort themselves into the universe. But first, I’m going to procrastinate. I have a motorcycle, which I sort of know how to ride, and I’m going to strap the black plastic box to the back and ride the long way to Vermejo New Mexico.