One Week and 7 States Later

(Sept. 15 :  After one week in gorgeous Denver, CO following our Kansas University PiKap Ragefest)

One week and seven states later, I feel absolute peace and...a hell of a lot lighter.  Is it because I've been living off of sandwiches and crackers?  Maybe the half water / half local brew liquid diet that has sustained my thirst for adventure?  No, its more intangible than that.  Less of a physical lightness and more of a long awaited exhale of anxiety and heavy uncertainty that has been exchanged for a Fresh Breadth of Freedom, Absolute Awareness, and an Ethereal Presence of spirit.

I feel alive, I feel a life, I feel the essence of life.  After years of guessing and searching for what is Right, what is my purpose, what the fuck am I doing giving power points to the Director of Technology about why my cash register is better than IBM's...I feel fresh and new, Tim 2.0.

Speaking with Smiles, Laughing with Love, High-Diving with Hello's, and Gingerly Jogging with Jokes have helped to lie down the foundation of my Yellowbrick Road to Cali's Emerald Triangle ("Follow the yellowbrick road" tune ensues with Tim and Rashad highskipping along, holding hands, cheeeeezing like hell). 

Hardheaded Happiness

(Oct. 1 - En route to Richmond after spending two weeks driving back and forth on the 101 along the beautiful Cali coast )

As I continue my sabbatical for Self-Actualization, I'm constantly reminded of how hardheaded I can be.  It's not like I'm boycotting reason and throwing cases of common sense overboard into the Boston Harbor, revolutionary style.  Nor am I trying to squeeze into a new attitude for my David Beckham meets Anthony Bourdain swagger down the catwalk of daily life...It's just for the simple reason... that I have to.

I question everything.  From debating with my parents Law and Order style about the pros, cons, and logical reasoning behind why in fact,  I couldn't sleepover two weeks in a row at my best friends house...to why I feel being a habitual ganja groupie has kept me healthy for 6 years, only coming down with minor colds once in a Red Sun.

Each time I go to a Mexican restaurant to this day, and the 4 foot nothing food runner pulls up with 19 plates balanced on his arms, head, and one leg and I hear a faint "Very Hot Plate" squeak out behind the gross amount of mexi-lard goodness me and my buddy just ordered, I always have to give the plate a poke.  You know?  I really have to see what these Mexicans think is hot, sometimes I get burnt, sometimes I don't.

But it's the questioning that Intrigues me....

What is hot?  Well than, what is a career?  Why can't I be homeless?  Why do we have to have the "title" of girlfriend to magically and "officially" be together?  DARE said  don't do drugs, they'll ruin your life.  Yes they can, but not mine; they've shown me things and led me to meet people I would have never met, who knows I might even to venture to say that if it wasn't for my first toke of the magic dragon, I might still be in a safe and secure 9-5.  (I say this not to knock a 9-5 whatsoever, but to prove a point that if I followed what Mr. Officer told me blindly,instead of beginning to question "authority", I would be a completely different person, on a different path).

I do agree with Mr. DARE on one point.  Weed IS a gateway drug.  Weed is a gateway to Greenfields of Curious Thought, analysis of the "Counter Culture" and the Prescription Pill Plethora of synthetic love that my generation holds onto so dearly.  I am neither condoning weed/drugs nor attempting to be a liberal hippie reciting Timothy Leary and Jerry Garcia sonnets of free love and Psychedelic  salvation.  I'm just saying, for me, I must question and experience everything I can, I wish I could take yours or her word for it, but dammit, only I can interpret what type of an effect that action or thought will have on me.

Dangerous?  Sometimes

Stupid?  A lot

Am I lucky I don't get seriously hurt or get arrested? YES, Big up to my guardian angels who are on their last straw with me.

But, Discovering TRUTH out for myself?

Absolutely necessary and priceless...(and the plates are never really THAT hot, I mean come on now)