Back when I was a young man me and my friends didn’t need an excuse to hang out and be together, we just did.  We hung out at school.  We hung out on many of the dirt roads that crisscross our territory.  We hung out in town.  We hung out at our hang out.  All this hanging out was nice.  We got to discuss everything under the sun.  We talked about all the things we were going to accomplish.  We laughed about all the things we hadn’t.  We were glad to be around each other, glad to have the company, glad to have the shared experience.  When there were girls there we were really, really glad.  I miss those days, sometimes.
Nowadays the coffee shop is the closest thing to our hang out of old.  It isn’t quite the same though.  We do more bitching about things than discussing our hopes and dreams.  We’re not glad if girls show up.  As a matter of fact we are quite indifferent to their presence.  They’re just one more bitcher added to the mix.  Gone is the male/female tensions of our youth.  We don’t try to impress them anymore.  We gave up on that years ago.  It’s only natural.  We did just enough to impress one of them to marry us.  It seems a terrible misuse of one’s energy to go trying to impress another one now.  That’s not to say if a really hot one comes walking in, which doesn’t happen to often, we will suck in our guts for as long as possible at least trying to look presentable but there is only so long a guy can hold his breath for the sake of vanity.  No one peels out anymore upon leaving.  Tires are expensive.  No girls were coaxed into the truck with you for a nice quiet ride where running out of gas was always a possibility.  We did figure out that the price of cattle is too damn low and the price of gas is too damn high.  There was no music being played to loudly and no one punched anyone.  It’s still good.  It’s just not exciting anymore.
I have found a new place to hangout nowadays that is almost as exciting as the hangouts of old.  It’s in cyberspace.  I belong to an online virtual world just full of people who are perpetually eighteen.  We dress in the latest fashions.  There is no ear hair, no nose hair.  All the men are handsome and the women are gorgeous.  There is an energy here.  There is the old male/female tension here.  You don’t have to suck in your gut here so you can sustain your grove much longer.  I believe people come to these places to hang out.  Why not?  If you get into a fight at a virtual cowboy bar you do not get hurt.  You don’t bleed.  You can talk all the B.S. you want to.  Nobody cares about cattle prices.  Gas doesn’t cost a thing.  It’s just like high school.  A high school for people who wouldn’t go back to high school if you paid them.  It’s fun.  Everyone’s happy to be there and looking good.  We’re hanging out baby.  We’re young rebels at least until the evening news comes on.  Then it’s back to bitching about stuff.

Rejection sucks.  It doesn’t matter in what form.  There are varying degrees of rejection but the feeling is the same for each.  If a pop machine rejects your dollar or a suitable mate rejects your advances you leave hurt and mad.  I experienced rejection on several occasions recently.  Both times I should have not cared in the least, but I did.  I couldn’t believe I did, but I did.  Damn.
The first rejection came when I decided to write a little harmless comment about an article that I had read and happened to agree with.  The article was explaining some technical aspects of a particular stock I am interested in.  I knew I didn’t understand every last detail of the analysis in the article.  I don’t have a degree in economics.  I thought I knew enough to write a comment that sounded like I had a good grasp on the issue at hand, that I was an informed investor, and an easy going guy with a good sense of humor who wanted to participate in the discussion.  I was reeeeee-jected.  I posted my comment and logged off.  About an hour later I came back to the computer expecting to see additional comments about my comment.  Good ones telling me what a smart and informed fellow I was and what a nice sense of humor I have.  I even entertained the idea that others may have stood and applauded after they read my comment.  What I got was a many comments telling me to do things to myself that I’m not sure I’m capable of doing.  There may be gentlemen out there that can do what they were telling me to do, but without some kind of major augmentation, I would be unable to accomplish this task.  I logged off angry and hurt.  I should have known better.  Trying to sound like you really know something about something you do not is a recipe for disaster and rejection.  I wanted to leave another comment proving that I knew what I was talking about and thus leaving them ashamed for attacking me, but I stared at a blank comment box until I realized I didn’t know what I was talking about and anymore comments would only further prove that point.  Damn.
My second rejection came when I decided to give the online virtual world a try.  I ran across an ad for one and I thought it looked interesting enough to sign up.  I had no experience  in the virtual world.  I had never played any role playing games nor had I ever had an avatar, but I signed up.  There were a few things I didn’t know at first.  Here’s the really big one.  A person’s avatar is supposed to look like what you fantasize about looking like, not what you actually look like in the real world.  I spent a lot of time making my avatar look like me.  I dressed my avatar in old jeans, a long sleeve shirt western shirt, and  old cowboy boots.  I even found an old looking hat and put it on.  I was happy with it.  It looked like a slightly younger version of me.  Proudly my avatar went traversing the virtual world walking proud with my cartoon head held high.  This world looked really nice.  I saw some interesting looking avatars and decided to go over and strike up a conversation.  As I approached each avatar they would disappear.  It was as if the rapture was taking place in the virtual world.  The Jesus avatar was calling all the good little avatars to heaven as I approached.  If I did get close enough to someone to actually starting chatting, the moment I typed something they would disappear.  A virtual pariah I was.  I was being reeeee-jected en-masse.  I was hurt and mad.  How dare the virtual world reject me so coldly?  I was ready to give it up when I met some really nice people who pointed out the problem.  One of them even gave me an outfit to wear.  That was very nice.  The outfit was a little to metro-sexual for me but I got the idea.  Now my avatar looks like Carry Grant.  I am no longer getting reeeee-jected so quickly.  Now if I can get my avatar to learn everything about micro economics I’ll be ready to comment again.

I drive my son to school every morning.  We drive the speed limit.  It’s a pleasant five miles during which I quiz him on the multiplication table.  Everything would be just wonderful, peachy even, if it weren’t for the folks who feel it necessary to speed and take chances on a two lane road with no shoulder.
I want to make something very clear before I launch into this diatribe.  I sometimes drive a race car.  I race on a dirt oval with other crazed hillbillies who feel the need to go fast and run into each other.  This is what is expected at the dirt track.  We’re not late for a meeting.  We’re not too damn lazy to get up early enough to be on time.  We also know we could die at any given moment.  We take the chance.  Did you get that?  We all take the chance.  We know we are endangering each other lives.  We do it willingly.  Why then must I put up with true dummies who want to endanger other people out on the road.  We are taking our children to school or going to work.  We do not want you to kill us.  I, personally, do not care how late you are.  I do not give a damn if you haven’t had time to put on your makeup.  I do not want you to pass me going up a hill at twenty miles per hour over the speed limit.  My job is to get my son to school safely.  I do not care what your job is—SLOW DOWN!
I’ll admit to having a touch of road rage.  I ran a guy into the ditch because he was trying to pass me in a school zone.  Does he really need that extra five seconds it’s going to take me to turn into the school grounds?  I lost my cool.  It couldn’t be helped.  It’s bad enough you rode my bumper swerving in and out of your lane looking for a chance to pass for a couple of miles while oncoming traffic gave you no chance.  Here’s a thought for you—get up earlier.  I mean dammit!  We worry about the mortgage, cancer, job security, making ends meet, buying the right camshaft/valve spring combination, do we really need to worry about unnecessarily dying in a car accident caused by an idiot in a hurry?  SLOW DOWN!
To make matters worse, much worse, I got a ticket, not a speeding ticket mind you, a seat belt ticket.  I make my son wear his seat belt every time we go anywhere.  I wear mine most of the time.  Sometimes I forget.  I spent twenty years not wearing it.  I should be forgiven for a lapse every now and again.  The absolute worse thing about getting the ticket wasn’t the fact that I got it, it was the fact that I was the only person on the road that day driving the speed limit.  Yes I was driving fifty five on the money.  I meet this cop going in another direction.  I look in my rear view mirror and I see tire smoke and flashing lights as he’s turning around.  I wonder if he just got an emergency call or something.  I found out shortly that he’s gunning for me, that dangerous guy who is trying to abide by all the rules save for one that only effects himself.  Oh happy day!  I think about this injustice every morning as I slowly drive my son to school.  “What’s 11 times 5 I ask?”  I know the answer well.  It’s the speed I was driving when I got a ticket.  I try not to show any anger while driving with my son.  I want to set a good example.  I’ll keep going slow and furious.

My son is eight and he has a new thing now, guns.  I’m not a big gun person.  I own a hand gun and a conceal-carry license.  I rarely take it with me.  Maybe twice a year.  I don’t think about it much.  It’s just a gun.  My son however thinks that guns are the coolest things ever.  He has several toy guns that he runs around with and shoots everything from me and his mother to the cat and dog.  The object of most conversations that he initiates are about guns, different kinds of guns, what one could shoot with a gun, and so forth.  It’s driving my wife crazy.  She grew up in town with parents who did not own guns.  They did not hunt or shoot.  Guns were never a part of their lives.  She doesn’t like them.  She cannot understand why the boy is so fascinated with them.
I grew up around guns.  My dad was a hunter.  Guns were ubiquitous in my childhood.  I had a b.b. gun at a very young age.  I quickly graduated to a shotgun in my early teens.  They were not glorified or made to seem to be anything but utilitarian in nature.  Basically I was taught that guns were for shooting game animals and birds.  We never spoke of them as being for protection.  I think this was implied.  I am comfortable around guns.  They do not have a personae in my mind.  They are neither good nor bad.  They just exist.  I am not a hunter so I do not have a close relationship with my weapon.  We are not on a first name basis.  I have not given it a name like gunny, old silver, or blasty.  I got it because of the old saying (I’m not sure where this comes from.  I think it’s in a movie) ” I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”  I fully expect to never need it.  It was still a small price to pay for the feeling of  having a fighting chance if something out of the ordinary ever happened.
My son hasn’t been raised around guns.  I keep my gun safely out of his sight and reach at all times.  I know he sees all the shows on television that features guns as a central component to the plot.  There are cop shows and movie trailers on all the time that have this feature.  We watch very few of these.  Still the imagery has had an effect on  his perception.  He sees guns as an accessory to coolness.  The image he has been bombarded with seems to be that guns are your first line of defense against all evil.  To him a gun is more than a gun.  It’s a symbol of what it means to be a defender of goodness, a protector of what is right.  He sees them as an extension of some ones personality.  Right now he pretends to shoot and fight and all the stuff most of us did at that age.  I know I played war, cops and robbers, and cowboys and indians with the best of them.  The gun was just a prop though.  You were either a cop or a robber.  That’s the personae you portrayed.  He seems to be gun-man.  The gun is the most important character in all of this.  You can understand my paranoia in all this right?  Those school shootings and postal workers shooting people up have made, or should have made, us a little hyper-vigilant about gun violence.  Maybe I’m making way to much out of this.  I just want him to understand that a gun is just a gun.  It has no inherent goodness or badness.  It’s a tool.  A really loud, shiny and pretty tool.  Ah hell, I’m starting to think that a gun is more than a gun now.

I undertook my first fishing trip of the year today.  It wasn’t good.  It was not good.  Good it was not.  I don’t consider myself to be a radical environmentalist or a radical of any political issue or cause but what I experienced today has given me a little insight into what some of these kind of folks may be feeling.
It all started when I turned my truck onto the road that leads to my secret winter time fishing hole.  Immediately I noticed there had been some dirt work done and some spots leveled off and graveled.  No problem I think.  Such is progress.  People build things all the time especially in areas around a beautifull lake.  It’s a couple of miles down this dirt road to where we fish and about half way there we run into a couple of pretty big shiny metal pipes running parrellel down the side of the road.  I start to get a little more than curious about this point.   I keep wondering where these pipes are going and then it hits me.  Oh no, I think.  They’re following the road that leads down to the fishing hole.  The sense of dread builds in me as I, and the pipes, snake our way closer to the water.  We round the last bend and my fears are confirmed.  A big pump truck is sitting there attached to the pipes right next to the water.  The truck is pumping water out of the lake to some new gass wells they’ve drilled down the road and, I’m assuming, pumping god only knows what back into the water.  Damn.
Not one to give up easily, I went on down the bank a ways and unloaded my tackle.  I get everything set out and proceed to catch a whole lot of nothing.  This is unusual.  Our secret fishing hole almost always produces fish in good quantities.  I begged the fish.  I cursed the fish.  I even threw in some loose change out of my pocket for a bribe.  Nothing.  This could all be a coincidence.  Maybe the fish on this day weren’t going to bite no matter what.  This is certainly a possibility.  I DO NOT know if the drilling and the pumping of the water has anything to do with the lack of fish I caught today.  I have no evidence to make a case either way.  However, I feel there is an arguement to be made here.  Do we really need the gas or oil from this small area so badly that we would risk fouling up one of the truly beautiful lakes on the planet?  Is it that important?  I want to know at want point does our need for more energy trump our desire for unspoiled lakes and wilderness?  Do I have to give up my fishing for this stuff.  I don’t want to.  I want gas for my truck also.  Is it an either/or question?  I can have gas for my truck but I have to give up the lake.  Or, I can have the lake and no gas to get there.  I’ll be honest.  The question sucks.  The answer sucks.  The fishing sucks.  We cannot have our cake and eat it too.  Right now I want to throw my cake at those damn pipes.  That’s my squeal for today.  Drill baby squeal!

If you find yourself in a funk as I do occasionally it helps to place meaning on things where perhaps there is none.  Is there meaning in a cup of coffee?  No probably not.  Therefore I place a huge significance on a cup when life is feeling empty and devoid of meaning.  It’s hot.  That’s something.  You can feel the warmth in your hands and on your lips.  It’s bitter-sweet.  Those are two of my favorite combinations.  That’s also something.  It smells and tastes good.  I’m pro smell and taste.  What does it mean to drink a cup of coffee?  It means you have two quarters to spend on it.  That’s not much but I’ve seen the day when I didn’t have two quarters.  It means you are alive and experiencing it.  That’s mostly always good.  Coffee is a thinkers drink.  You drink coffee with a pensive look.  You can’t stop yourself from getting that far-away look in your eyes as you sip.  I’m unsure if there is actually real thought going on while performing this function or if it’s a learned response like when an anthropologist gives a monkey a banana for doing some simple task.  I guess it doesn’t really matter.  There are many ways to hold a coffee cup each of which will convey meaning.  You can use the finger hole on the side and be very conventional and conservative.  By utilizing this method you say to the world that you are all about doing things right and proper.  You can hold the cup by cradling it with both hands and disregarding the finger hole.  This method conveys that you are a sensitive person who cares about others and perhaps you’re afraid of holes. Those are the only two methods I can think of right now but you can see how important and meaningful how you hold your cup really is.  There is also great meaning in the kind of coffee you drink but that discussion is best left to psychologists and therapists.  For our purposes we are only considering the pure and simple black cup of joe.  It is my belief that people who drink straight black coffee have the least psychological problems.  Maybe I need to try one of those double Latte half caff mocha something or others.  I bet it would be meaningful.