As those of you who follow me know, I »almost never post anything personal here. There are a wide array of reasons why this is so. But I am going to do it now. This post may disappear shortly, so enjoy it while you can…

To be frank, or even tom, I nearly never travel. I haven’t gone anywhere at all since Buddy Holly died. And the music with him, according to Don MacLean. But a strange concordance of circumstances finds me traveling for my birthday this year, a time which has often been both wonderful and hellish for me throughout my history. When you’re born on, effectively, THE holiday, there’s a lot of complexities that come with that.

I went up to Lake Arrowhead to stay briefly. A friend who is in prison has a house there, and I stayed a few days and went to visit him at Terminal Island. To say that wasn’t fun would be a terrifying understatement. But it was good to see him. I had to stop myself from crying, because, you know, crying is ‘gay’ in prison. Which leads immediately to various disasters.

From there I went to LA to pick up the Tesla X I am driving on my exodus to Moab UT. I then went directly to Arleta to visit a very close and brilliant friend who I have never met. And his family. That was wonderful, but I was beginning to feel that something was off, health-wise. Thankfully, I didn’t communicate the illness to my friend. It would have been truly disastrous as he and his family love close together in a small apartment.

Next day felt ok, and was relieved. The day after that, I began to feel really awful. Wracking chest cough, fever, so much pain in my chest (like nothing I can ever recall, my chest musculature was like an agony circus). Two days of totally soaking the sheets, drinking some water, and soaking them again.

My largely cloistered lifestyle has protected me from illness for nearly 30 years. I haven’t been sick in literally forever.

Meanwhile, the Tesla threw a ‘coolant error’. So, while I was madly sick I had to take it to a shop ‘down the mountain’. That road, by the way is the epitome of peril. Steep, winding, shoulderless terror. Well, that’s a slight exagerration. More like a fearburger with prison relish.

Now, the ONLY place I have traveled in the past 20 years is to Lake Arrowhead. With the exception of having to do time in Stockton due to my father’s passing at this time 2 years ago. The ‘echo’ wasn’t lost on me—I could sense the proximity of my own mortality. The COVID tests were negative, but something was horribly wrong.

I got the Tesla repaired and managed to retrieve it without incident. Strangely, driving that car is so comfortable that it almost doesn’t matter if I am deathly ill. Almost.

In life we choose which risks to take, and when to take them.

This whole adventure is wildly out of character for me, but I’ve been living in a little box for many years due to some trauma that happened in 2000. I recently decided, in a clear way, that I wanted out. I want life. I want meaningful roles, adventures, and relationships (though I have a lot of close friends, it’s just that none of them live near me).

Here are some highlights of my travels so far:

• Dueling auto-nav: Ok, I have to say that I hate computers. Even though I am and have long been a tech. Auto-nav, especially the nonsense endemic to the Tesla is an experiment in mind-wrecking irony. As I never drive, generally, I have been spared the diseases that must surely result from interaction with these systems. Sometimes, when seeking a charging station, I had to pit google maps (phone) against the Tesla system with ‘hilarious’ results. Hilarious as in listening to two nav systems both telling me different routes, and BOTH failing totally to get me to a charging station. Proximity? Yes. They got me NEAR a charging station. But not to one. I felt like I was feeding my brain into a meat grinder that electrocuted me every time I turned the crank…

• Las Vegas. Oh my (expletive deleted) (reference to divinity). What an absolute nightmare. If I was God, and I was prone to tantrums, that’s the first place I would flatten. After more than an hour of trying to find a charger there, running a fever of 103, I get trapped in this situation where once I start to pull into a charger, I cannot back up and it forced me to pay $18 just to enter the charging area. I know, it’s not much, but it’s the principle. My little charred doughnut still feels violated.

• ‘Vitamin Store Adventure’: I am in some nightmare town that I forced myself to forget. I want two supplements: Echinacea Goldenseal and Cat’s Claw. I know they will probably have the former, but would be surprised if they had the latter. I find them on the shelf. But strangely, the Cat’s Claw is $37.00. But here’s where a bit of knowledge wins the day: same company has the same extract under ‘Pau D’Arco’ (which I recognize as Claw of Cat) for 12.50. For once, I win.

I drove 15 hours yesterday and made it to Beaver UT. Today, I am feeling like I may not actually die. Not out of the woods, and still spending way too much money on COVID tests. But I have hope. I might actually make it to my destination intact.

Wish me luck.