We're Winkers: Too Much To Tell

Things have been moving really fast. I've been living a lot and haven't had time to document every little thing. I'm sorry. But I guess that is what happens when you're happy. It's a strange thing, I've really had the goal of 'complete and total enlightenment' set high on my priority list for a while now, and I feel like I'm on the road. I was also intent on documenting the whole thing, from the moment of my lowest low all the way to nirvana. I want to show people that life can be improved, and it's been working. I dug myself out of some pretty wretched places and am now living a happy and productive life. I have money and stability and, in a crazy development, love.  

And I HAVE left the trail of breadcrumbs in case anyone wants to see how I did it. You can watch the film Drunk to see where I was in normalcy. You can read the book This Book Will Make You Go Crazy if you want to know about my lows. And I will be releasing another book this week, called Dearest Madeleine, that documents the beginning of my travels and the climb back towards where I am now. 

I didn't mean for this blog to be a shameless self-promotion, all I'm trying to say is that I've had these goals for myself, and I've been doing a pretty good job at finding progress and achieving what I have felt that I must. The curveball has come with that progression. The odd thing is that I am now happy and have reached a plateau. It is getting harder to stay motivated to keep pushing forward. Emily and I are super-duper-lovey-gooey-head-over-heels at each other. Life is good. Sometimes I feel like I could just stay here.

And I realize how dangerous that is. Life never lets you 'just stay here'. I found that out the hard way when I was happy with Mandy. I wanted to 'just stay there' and, eventually, it all came crashing down.

SO, what to do about it? Well, Emily and I will take this happiness and we will realize that life can still get even more awesome. We will be grateful for our situation, grateful for the opportunity to join forces with another human being to achieve even greater things than we could otherwise do on our own, and we will put that motivation to work. 

We have already started. This week we road-tripped it to Minneapolis/St. Paul. Emily wants to move there. She thinks that it would be a good jump for her career and she likes the cities. She wanted to show me (which is silly, I don't have any plan at all. I'd go where ever.) So, off we went. 

We stopped in Cleveland and saw the world's largest rubber stamp:

See it back there? It says 'FREE'. Then Em stopped me from peeing in Lake Erie. Then it was off towards Chicago. We saw The Bean. I got to see Em get frustrated about driving, and I discovered that I am getting older and the whole 'I need to pee' thing is starting to become a larger issue in my life. Lame.

When we got to Minneapolis, everything was perfect. We had a sweet little attic bedroom with a great host who warned of us a thing called 'Minnesota Nice'. Apparently, it's an attitude wherein common courtesy is observed, but contempt bubbles underneath. We did not see any signs of this. The guy at the coffee shop was a member of a band (that we looked up and Emily is super into) who had toured and played in Albuquerque. He suggested that we check out The Turf Club, which we did:

Then we took the bus, chatted with a wonderful lady that confirmed, at least for me, that everyone in Minneapolis is worth talking to (this came back to haunt me later). We went to the art museum. Had a great time:

That's Dali

Then we went to the Minnehaha Falls, where Emily wouldn't let me jump over a totally jumpable sign that said 'Steps Closed' and roll down right up to the falls. Here's a picture of the falls (from far away) and then one of me pouting about not being able to go closer:

Then we rode the Light Rail into St. Paul. On the 30 minute trip, I started talking to a stoned, screaming, crazy man who claimed that he was god. Aside from the insanity and drug veils that he was shouting through, I didn't have any reason to doubt him, so I started asking him questions (to the relief of some of the other passengers who were getting annoyed at his general address). During the course of our conversation, he told me that he had banished Satan to the moon (good!), that I had to treat Emily right (duh), if I was going to marry her I had to propose with a ring that cost $150,000 and was fashioned by him (yikes), and that 'pretty much every single person is just one person' (good to know). 

That night, we ate at an awesome Indian restaurant, The Himalayan, where the 'Extra Hot' didn't phase my New Mexican sensibilities. Then it was off to the Turf Club for the McNasty Brass Band and Mardi Gras party time.

The next morning we woke up to snow and ate at the Hi-Low Diner. Our waitress, Alyson, told us that she would make us custom aprons. She was another great detail, and a wonderful energy to experience before we started our long trip home. I ate a donut with bacon, mozzarella, onion, tomato and a glaze topping. It was more perfection on a perfect trip.

On the way back, it snowed all the way through Wisconson. I made up slogans for the state while Emily drove: 'Wisconson: Fuck Wisconson', 'Indiana: Yeah, People Pass Through Here', 'West Virginia: Wild, Wonderful. Yeah, that's about right.'

It was an awesome time. There were lessons along the way. Emily has promised to write her own account of it, and I'm sure that if she does, she will capture many of these things in a much more artistic and effective way than I am able. The point is that this blog is not an accurate representation of what is happening in my life right now. I could go into detail about all of these events, the feelings associated with them, and the progress that has been made. But there isn't time. Life is already happening again today and I have to go out there and live it. The problem with trying to stay current with all of this is that the better I get at life, the more I'm living it and the less time that I have to write it all down. I think that art is definitely a means to work out the things that we don't understand about this life, it is a tool to interpret the beauty and complexity of our existence in ways that simple explanation cannot. The problem is that my whole goal has always been to 'explain everything', and now my 'everything' is getting too complex to explain. 

That doesn't mean that I won't keep trying. I have freedom, love, adventure, opportunity, work, art, beauty, and challenge. Just like everyone else. The only thing that I can observe as I look back at this piecemeal blog is that I am grateful for everything that surrounds me and I am always excited to see what the next moment will bring, no matter what it is.

Supplemental: See, I totally forgot to talk about standing on an island in the middle of the Mississippi, Em reading me A Single Man while we were driving home, my continued efforts to be able to enjoy my silly feelings from a distance. Jeez.