Jim, I Had The Silly Thing in Reverse.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Yeah, Jim, so you hit the wrong pill bottles, and you take the wakeumups at 8PM, and you're fucking doomed.  There's nothing for it but to climb into a beat up Jeep with a woman you're kinda married to, and go bouncing all over the Catalina mountain range, with stars in the sky and Bob Seger's Fire Down Below pounding out of the radio (Always remember, Jim, that nothing bad can happen to you when Bob Seger is on the radio, so if you're going to do something stupid, do it then.).

And when the bullets run out and you finally find something that will damage the Jeep badly enough that you have to limp it along, you stop and you make a small bonfire and you have wild monkey sex 1000 meters above The City, My City, and you know what?  Things really aren't that bad, at least out here where men can still be free, if they're serious about having a good time.

And you laugh and tell jokes all night, and try to pretend that this isn't a fleeting moment of sheer glory before the inevitable bickering begins, and then you wonder WHY you bicker...and maybe, just maybe, you can be a human being instead of a screeching monkey for a while.  You know it can't last forever, because neither one of you will be pushed, and there is always a certain amount of push in a relationship.  But that's later, and this is now, and it's not too cold and everything is just as it ought to be.  And you finally snag a little bit of sleep, maybe an hour or so, and more wakeumups will take care of the rest, anyway.

So when the morning comes, and you have to get off the mountain for that ridiculous 5:30AM meeting about nothing that couldn't wait, you aren't so mad about it.  Just part of the monkey game...and I can look out of my office and see those mountains, and know that there IS something outside of The City, even if it's just for a few hours.

And life just isn't that bad.

Or kill me.

[LMNO]

It's those moments, those slivers in a life's worth of time, that make being conscious bearable.

I've been searching these moments out ever since I found out about them; lucky for me, I stumbled across one early on in my life.  The tough part was figuring out the recipe... It's not money, and it isn't fame.  Neither of those can get you to that place, although the money can get you a plane ticket.

Even if it only lasts 30 seconds, I search them out.  One bright flash in the back of the brain can make the rest of the day fade into the background.

My aim is to find these tiny pinpricks of experience, and string them together, in ever longer strands.  With any luck, I'll be able to spin my own web, and set up my own private rest stop on the Lost Highway.

But even if I don't get there, its what puts one foot in front of the other.

[Jenne]

...ah, the moth to the flame moments.  Bless you for seeking them out when the price can be so high, Rog.  I think a lot of us either don't recognize the danger anymore or have just given up trying to find them.

LMNO, you hit the nail on the head about their fleetingness at times.

The best part is when you can muster a shit-eating grin and forget the fact that this isn't going to last but a few moments. 

Rog, I don't think you had anything in Reverse, except maybe the company you were keeping, but then even she has her uses for you that seem entirely right with all that's wrong in the universe.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Rog, I don't think you had anything in Reverse,

1.  Pill bottles, and

2.  The Jeep, when I backed over a huge rock and fucked the suspension.  Again.

But Jeeps can be fixed, and they make a pill for taking the wrong pills.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

With any luck, I'll be able to spin my own web, and set up my own private rest stop on the Lost Highway.

But even if I don't get there, its what puts one foot in front of the other.

This.

[Jenne]

Rog, I don't think you had anything in Reverse,

1.  Pill bottles, and

2.  The Jeep, when I backed over a huge rock and fucked the suspension.  Again.

But Jeeps can be fixed, and they make a pill for taking the wrong pills.

Ah, yes, the literal meaning of the word, duh, Jenne.  But still, the reverse seemed to not be the WRONG direction.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Rog, I don't think you had anything in Reverse,

1.  Pill bottles, and

2.  The Jeep, when I backed over a huge rock and fucked the suspension.  Again.

But Jeeps can be fixed, and they make a pill for taking the wrong pills.

Ah, yes, the literal meaning of the word, duh, Jenne.  But still, the reverse seemed to not be the WRONG direction.

There's a light at both ends of the tunnel, Jenne.  Sometimes it's easier to turn around and go back for a bit, even if it means you'll make the same mistakes later.

Enjoying the ride is still possible, even if you make some wrong turns here and there.

[Jenne]

Rog, I don't think you had anything in Reverse,

1.  Pill bottles, and

2.  The Jeep, when I backed over a huge rock and fucked the suspension.  Again.

But Jeeps can be fixed, and they make a pill for taking the wrong pills.

Ah, yes, the literal meaning of the word, duh, Jenne.  But still, the reverse seemed to not be the WRONG direction.

There's a light at both ends of the tunnel, Jenne.  Sometimes it's easier to turn around and go back for a bit, even if it means you'll make the same mistakes later.

Enjoying the ride is still possible, even if you make some wrong turns here and there.

Hm, I think one light I seek out (cheap thrills that take you to the edge and back, Anyone?), and one light I have to find with a fucking flashlight, however.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Rog, I don't think you had anything in Reverse,

1.  Pill bottles, and

2.  The Jeep, when I backed over a huge rock and fucked the suspension.  Again.

But Jeeps can be fixed, and they make a pill for taking the wrong pills.

Ah, yes, the literal meaning of the word, duh, Jenne.  But still, the reverse seemed to not be the WRONG direction.

There's a light at both ends of the tunnel, Jenne.  Sometimes it's easier to turn around and go back for a bit, even if it means you'll make the same mistakes later.

Enjoying the ride is still possible, even if you make some wrong turns here and there.

Hm, I think one light I seek out (cheap thrills that take you to the edge and back, Anyone?), and one light I have to find with a fucking flashlight, however.

Cheap thrills have become a very under-rated thing in America™. 

Hell, they're 90% of my fun.

[Jenne]

Cheap thrills have become a very under-rated thing in America™. 

Hell, they're 90% of my fun.

So very true.  I don't know what's happened to them--they don't shit in anyone's milk and are actually the best way to round out what turns out to be a pretty crappy existence most of the time.

If you don't embrace the cheap thrills, WAYSA?

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

You have to seek out those moments, because to go completely without them will kill you, no matter how hard you fight it, in the end, it will kill you.  

I really liked this Roger, helps me realize there is always another way to turn.....

Thanks!

[Richter]

Good times!

Reminds me of the days I get to armor up and fight for hours, not caring about anything except refining that particular trick of walking away from an attrition fight.  Or sitting down after kicking a loud party of large people who came out of nowhere out, realizing I'm not going to sleep, but it's OK because my favorite episodes of "Big O" and "Evangelion" just happen to be on the 4 Am rotation.

I've thought over that tunnel, light at both ends, bastards at both ends.  
I could bring all kinds of shit down it to make me feel better.  I could haul a whole fucking Howitzer with me, but I'd never be able to turn the thing around.  No good choice deciding whether to shoot the bastards coming after me, or the bastards yet ahead of me.  Either way, I'll still have a problem, and a huge lump of now useless metal in my way.  Either way, they'd know I'm spent and swarm in.  I am not a model they can recondition, I am too alien to be salvaged for parts, they will put me down on sight.  No, bringing a cannon is only a trap.  I will have none of that.  If I'm good, I'll flick the still smouldering but of whatever is useless into the ammo dump before I walk in though.  

Some deep old Korean dude once told me that invincibility was all in the mind.  You can be Superman, just keep breathing.  I didn't want to point out that he, being still alive, had a self fullfilling prophecy on his hands.  Still, walking down that tunnel, facing down that light, I'd rather have that atittude.  Whatever is there can approach me however it wants, it won't change what will happen.    

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I am not a model they can recondition, I am too alien to be salvaged for parts, they will put me down on sight.  

And who can blame them?  You were never properly approved for use in the first place.  You, Richter, are a mutant and a freak, and you scare your neighbors.  The East coast was never meant for people like you, sir, and you really should consider relocating to the High Desert, where your sort of freak is not only permitted, but relied upon.

The East is soft, Richter, and they will eventually be overrun with howling barbarians, probably from my own neighborhood.  Get in on the ground floor...we can always use a man who understands social engineering tools like spiky gauntlets and big fucking axes.  This is a new century, and calls for new solutions...And YOU are one of those solutions, so you owe it to the rest of us not to be pulled down like the rabid, diseased mutt you are.

[LMNO]

Enjoying the ride is still possible, even if you make some wrong turns here and there.

I'd also consider the people along for the ride, and what roles you stuck them, in your brain.  Maybe you were wrong about the use they provided, and then jettisoned them when the time came to shed ballast.

And maybe, they did that to you.

Because no one is an extra, and everyone is the protagonist, depending on what story is told.

There's a chance that the wrong move wasn't in picking up that hitchiker, it was thinking that all they had was a map.  Could have been that they have a lot more to offer, but you just got the story wrong, initially.




A thought, that's all.  Can't say it's never happened to me.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Enjoying the ride is still possible, even if you make some wrong turns here and there.

I'd also consider the people along for the ride, and what roles you stuck them, in your brain.  Maybe you were wrong about the use they provided, and then jettisoned them when the time came to shed ballast.

And maybe, they did that to you.

Maybe.  But that's unimportant, now.  Right now, I'm in the mood for some serious filth, and I know just the place.

We will march on a road of bones, LMNO...while we still can.