Mean Vick and the Poet, Part 2

When we last peeked in on Mean Vick, she'd courageously asked her Native American Poet-Hero-Heartthrob to dance. During a course of polite conversation, with Vick doing all of the verbal heavy lifting, he told her of his recent layoff, leaving Vick holding a big ol' bag of mortification.
"Don't be upset. How were you to know?" I counseled.
"I didn't." She gazed at him from across the dance floor. "But I can't help it." Another swoony look. "He's gorgeous. I want to drag him around by his ponytail."
"We should buy him a beer. That's what you do for laid off people, right? Load them up with alcohol?"
It was perfect justification. Vick bought a Miller High Life (nothing less than the champagne of bottled beers for our ponytailed poet). From my place by the bar, I silently cheered her on as she made her way to where he stood. She made a couple flapping gestures with her hands as he calmly accepted the consolation beer, adding it to the stash on his table.
Redundant Heartthrob Poet seemed to pop up everywhere we were that weekend - the impromptu jam session at Stockmen's bar, at the excellent fry bread lunch, at the casino late at night. A lot of people must have felt badly for his job loss, because a cadre of beers formed a sort of posse around him, effectively taking the bloom off cactus for Vick.

"Do you suppose those are all sympathy drinks?" I ventured.

"I don't know," Vick sighed. "But I still want to drag him around by his ponytail."

In Praise of Crappy Coffee

The only thing better than taking a road trip in January is, while on that road trip, sipping coffee the color and taste of your car's tires from a styrofoam cup. Crappy coffee is going the way of the daily newspaper, and it's a damn shame. What's the point of a beautiful road trip with miles of highway to explore, a new atlas by your side, cooler full of cheez whiz and brunschwieger, if you're going to ruin the whole journey with predictable java?

The primo cup of road coffee isn't found at a place that sells CDs and tea balls. Truly fine fuel for your driving can only be purchased at a place that sells fuel for your car - the gas station. And to do it really right, find a gas station without a convenience store screwed onto it. The best road coffee, and I mean a cup of the stuff that's been sitting in a glass carafe on the burner for a couple hours, is a challenge to find, but so worth the search. Generally speaking, if the gas station is on a two-lane highway and has an oil drum for a garbage can by the door it's a good sign, and a grimy, hand-lettered sign by the drip brewer that says, "Coffee, 50 cents" means a bona fide barrista is at work.


When you pour the coffee into the cup, a few flakes of yesterday's dried-up remnants should float at the top. Packets of Coffee Mate, in plain (or amaretto and creme de menth for the BMW drivers) and a box of sugar cubes should be the condiment choices. If your lips inadvertently curl upon taking the first swig, and it leaves an oily coating in your mouth, you know you've found an honest cup of road coffee.

I like to chew my road coffee while driving, listening to any local AM radio station and watching the fence posts tick by. It tastes like adventure.

January Wanderlust

January is my favorite. It's big, it's cold, it's boring. January is the cinder block of months, which makes it a primo time to hit the road, have a little adventure, give yourself something to remember fondly during those annoyingly long, warm days of summer.

This one time? My best friend Mean Vick and I? We drove to the Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada in mid-January. It was raining when we left the bay area and as we drove I-80 east towards the Ruby mountains, pewter skies pissed rain, the rain turned to sleet, sleet turned to snow by Elko, with temps hovering above booger-freezing. It was perfect. At the Saturday night Chicken Scratch dance, Vick downed a Bud and screwed up enough nerve to talk to her Native American Poet-Hero-Heartthrob, let's call him Jim Blackfeather. Things went fairly well through introductions—she didn't snort or stutter. But actual conversation jackknifed like a semi on black ice.
"How do you like your job at the college?" she asked him.
"It was OK until they fired me."
Crap. "Oh, sorry. Did that happen recently?"
"Yesterday."

In the spirit of full disclosure, Vick stopped me from accidentally walking into the motel parking lot at 5:00 in the morning wearing nothing more than my Timex. But that's for another post.

So you see, these memories keep my spirits buoyed through July, when the stupid sun is shining well past 9:00 at night, and the birds won't shut up, and I miss bundling up in some great polar fleece and a goretex rain parka.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Let's Get Serious This Time

Poor old The Heck You Say blog wasn't getting any love for a long, long, real long time. I blame a full-time job, I blame then-president Bush, I blame the dog (as in, the dog ate my motivation.)

But all that blaming is done, and things look differently from this side of the pasture nowadays. Let's have an adventure, eh? Starting with the Kaiser Permanent Half Marathon in San Francisco on February 7. I'm in it, my first half-marathon ever, and I'm ready. Seriously, I've been getting up in the dark, putting in miles while owls are still hooting in the oak trees, setting off motion detector lights - how I love setting off the motion detector lights - in preparation for this.

If anyone else is entered, give me a shout and let me know how you're doing. If you've run it before, this newt will take all the advice you've got.