Tag Archives: #VanLifeDream

Buy the Ticket, Take the Trip, or Just Hit the Road and Don’t Look Back

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Today is Mother’s Day here in the United States and this isn’t just about my mother of course, but about women who put aside things they want to do simply because they don’t want to ‘disappoint’ someone. But women are now saying ‘fuck that shit’ and disappointing people left and right and doing what they want to do, and most of all, they’re walking away and staying away from bad shit, like bad marriages, bad jobs, and people who are just disappointed in them whenever they step out of line.

I’ve been seeing this meme going around saying ‘Buy the Ticket’ and I really like it. It’s saying ‘buy the ticket’ to the concert, the movie, or the trip, or whatever you want to. Now, why does this need to be said? Because too many women, (and guys, if this applies to you keep reading but I’m specifically addressing women here), don’t buy that ticket, or just don’t do something simple because it might ‘disappoint’ someone. And it’s only because it might take a little bit of time away from someone else, and that someone is usually a grown-ass adult who can more than take care of themselves.

In the summer of 2024, a lot of young people from the United States flew to Europe to see concerts by big artists and also go to the music festivals. Why? Because the dollar was kicking the euro’s ass so travel was really affordable and also, concert tickets aren’t scalped in Europe. I was all for that and I actually had a few passengers in the car that summer tell me that’s what they were doing when I took them to the airport. I strongly encouraged them to keep doing this whenever they got the opportunity.

For me, I only bought the ticket once, and it was for a concert in Austin, Texas in August 2001. It was for Russell Crowe’s band at a concert at an outdoor venue there. My original plan was to take my mother with me but not long after I bought the tickets, her cancer came back in another part of her body. So she started another round of radiation and chemotherapy and couldn’t go with me. Looking back, I wished she’d said no to the treatment and instead focused on building up as much strength to handle a night outside in the middle of August (which can be pretty brutally hot even after dark in Texas).

In fact, I’m going to come right out and say this right here and now: I’d wished she’d stopped treatment after about the second or third recurrence. I wish she’d stopped treatment and just said to hell with it, sold everything and hit the road. Because she always wanted to travel and loved seeing new places and had plans about doing that before the cancer. But my father being a raging insecure jack-ass pressured her pretty damn hard to keep the treatments going because he thought they’d work. To me, if the first or second round doesn’t put someone into remission for more than a year, I’d say call it quits and just live in the time you have. Because he and I along with my mother knew damn good and well she wasn’t going to die cancer-free. But I also think the three of us were not quite afraid, but just didn’t want to deal with other people who didn’t understand this kind of decision. Because they sure as hell freaked the fuck out whenever we talked about how we were going to deal with the end and all that.

So in turn, I’m not giving up on my dream of hitting the road and making it as a writer. Yes, I’m doing it on a shoestring and a prayer, and scrimping and saving whenever I can. But I know I can do it if I don’t give up. And lucky for me, I don’t have a husband or anyone in my life I’m responsible for, and most of all, if someone decided they wanted to tell me how ‘disappointed’ they were in me for wanting this and pursuing it… well, ‘fuck off’ is a complete sentence.

Years ago, I read this statement: “People can handle being disappointed.” – Dr. Nicole LePera. And that statement changed me for the better because although it’s taken a long time to truly sink in, it has. Because as I wrote at the beginning of this year, I’ve made my peace with being alone in life. But here’s the really big thing: no one knows the future, or what the next day will bring, or what’s just around the corner. And you won’t find that out until you get off your ass and go find out. I tried staying in one place and making what I thought would be an ‘acceptable’ life and instead, I broke down and in turn, my life imploded altogether. Yes, I survived it and came out the other side with an emotional clarity no one touch, but the scars will always be there.

I’ve also said before that I’m still having a conversation with my mother through time and space. There are times when I’m on the road when I feel like she’s riding beside me and I feel her with me. I’ve gotten to work through the emotional recovery that she didn’t get so now I’m working on taking the trip and hitting the road like she didn’t get to. I don’t want to be a woman who stayed put simply because she felt like she couldn’t disappoint people, or was afraid to deal with their bullshit. I’m not afraid anymore and besides, most of these disappointed people eventually move on and leave you behind. So leave them behind once and for all, and travel with the people you want to, even if they’re with you only in spirit.

Road Signs

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This morning I asked myself, “Why do I have to feel like shit about myself?”

Answer: I don’t.

So why did that question come to my mind in the first place?

Because yesterday I asked myself another question, and that response turned into the latest attempt at an introduction to my book ‘Uber Tales: Stories and Thoughts From the Road’. The question I asked was, “How do I put nine years on the road into a book?” In this new introduction, I said I’ve been trying to write this book for a few years now and with one thing or another coming up, I haven’t gotten around to it. But this morning as my mind drifted in the darkness, I realized I hadn’t gone anywhere near this book for one stupid-simple reason: I was afraid of what someone mouth off at me and that I’d shrink and fold instead of shrugging it off with maybe a pithy, even nasty comment in reply.

Now after all this time and all the work I’ve done on myself, why would I still feel fear at the extremely-faint possibility of someone coming at me and putting me down? It’s not really fear that I feel per se, but more like dreading the thought of having to deal with shit like that. In reality, I know I don’t need to shrink myself or silence myself in order not to have to deal with this kind of stupid, mean-girl type bullshit. And yes, it’s been a really long time since I’ve had someone make a stupid, insensitive, condescending comment to me about my life or what I’m doing or anything like that. But for more years than I care to admit, I just sat and took that kind of shit and dear readers, that’s a scar that never fully heals.

I spent so many years as a people-pleaser, and I failed miserably at it. I failed at it because people-pleasing itself is an exercise in futility with guaranteed failure. Because if you’re trying to please people, in reality, you’re really trying to appease them. You’re trying to keep them from being mean and cruel to you, from getting in your shit and fucking things up for you, and you’re trying to keep them from hurting other people. People who are emotionally-immature, brain-dead idiots will never be satisfied with anything, and in turn, they will move on from you. But you’ll be left standing all alone in the wreckage of your life.

In the last ten years, I’ve been picking up the pieces of my mind, my heart, and my soul and putting them back together in a way that has led to a lot of healing. And here’s the thing: my book ‘Uber Tales’ will show that because my personal journey is as much a part of my life on the road as an Uber driver as is the anecdotes and observations from the road itself. And I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell this story as I’m still living it. So now I realize this is my story to tell, and that it won’t be anything but boring, or so I hope. 😊

I will say there is an element of ‘this or that’ in my life that I’m still learning how to manage. Last week, I had my period after a two-month hiatus and it kicked my ass. So my hormones have decided to come back to life with a vengeance and fuck things up for me but hopefully this will be a last gasp or next-to-last gasp of that shit. Also, it rained like hell here in San Antonio earlier this week and I wasn’t going to risk driving around in flood waters. But the temperature is going up, and eventually the clouds will burn off and look out! Most of all, I am learning that hormonal shifts really fuck up my ADHD tendencies but that I do recover faster from those fuck-ups, too.

So what’s a lonely writer supposed to do here? Keep on rolling, and keep writing. I can see what gets viewed on my website and on social media and the numbers are pretty consistent with tiny amounts of growth. So I know there is a lot of potential for me to develop that into something that hopefully generate revenue. Because making money, or wanting to make money off my writing and social media engagement is something I will NOT apologize for nor will I take shit for it, either. Not that anyone has come at me like that but just a word of warning for anyone who wants to mouth off like to me. Because in this fucked-up world we all live in, you do what you can to eke out a living.

And for the last nine years, I’ve managed to scratch out a living, or at least survive without ending up under a bridge by being on the road. Yes, I feel like I’ve burned some bridges here and there, and as to how much of that part of the story I will tell remains to be seen. But I’ve made it this far, and I’ll make it all the way. Because there is an old van waiting for me to kit it out and the road calls to me.

The signs are there, on and off the road. And if there is one thing I’ve learned in my almost fifty-two years on this planet, it’s to look at those signs and see where they’ll take me.

I Don’t Need to Compete With AI (artificial intelligence)

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AI is doing this

AI is taking over that

AI is going to wipe us all out

It seems all you hear about AI is that AI is taking over, has taken over, and there is nothing us dumb-ass humans can do about it. Well, us dumb-ass humans invented this technology so it’s sloppy and imperfect and sooner or later, bound to fuck things up like it already has, and just like us real flesh-and-blood humans still do on a regular basis. So what’s a poor flesh-and-blood human slob to do?

My response is this: I don’t need to compete with AI.

Why?

Because I’m already being used to train it, and AI is only as smart as the material it scrapes up from the internet. But here’s the thing: AI doesn’t discern whether material is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or ‘quality’ material. It doesn’t seem to know how to fact-check something from multiple sources. It just spits out what it thinks users want to hear.

Case in point: the first sentence of the above paragraph was tagged by the spelling/grammar check in the Microsoft Word program I use to write. It tagged ‘being used’ and ‘train’ and asked me if I was using the correct verb tense. Yes, I am because I wanted to say that AI is actively using me to train itself on but since I’m writing in the first-person here, it doesn’t seem to understand singular present-tense verbiage here. This is why I will look at what the spelling/grammar check is highlighting and sometimes I will correct it but that’s my choice, not the program’s.

If anyone accuses me of using AI to write or edit, I’m going to laugh in their faces then tell them to fuck off straight to Hell. I don’t just write in a colorful funky way to piss off or throw off AI, but because I choose to write and talk this way. I choose to use sentence structure that may not be ‘perfect’ but I can proofread quite well on my own. And yes, I will claim an attitude here because I was writing and proofreading long before I started using word processing software. And I don’t trust software completely as I know it’s as flawed as I can be, and that technology is only as good as the people who create it, program it, and use it.

One of the current crop of tech-bro billionaire assholes recently said that neurodivergent people will survive the coming of AI. I was like, “Fuck yes!” And you know why? Because neurodivergent people like me don’t think in a straight line, or logically, and we’re not boring. We’re annoying as fuck sometimes, or a lot of the time, and we’re not perfect as our neurodivergent brains can fuck our lives up pretty well. But I think we’re genuine survivors because we see things that boring dumb-ass neurotypical people don’t see, like patterns and other things that are right in front of us but neurotypical people are blind to. It’s why intelligence agencies recruit neurodivergent kids out of high school into intelligence analysis because a good intelligence analyst can see patterns where most people can’t.

But the current crop of tech-bro billionaire assholes don’t like people who see through their bullshit because most of these guys are just hustlers and con-men. Most of them don’t really know the nuts-and-bolts of what they’re peddling and don’t really care because despite all their grandiose visionary garbage they spout, they really don’t know how things work. And most of all, I really think they hate the neurodivergent half of the human population because they know they’re going to need us neurodivergent weirdos to solve their fucking problems.

In the end, I don’t see myself competing with AI at all. As a writer this is something I see a lot of discussion about how to write when you’re competing with AI slop. Humans are not ‘competing’ with AI slop because AI slop is being generated by lazy con-artist scamming humans. And I don’t compete with criminals and jack-asses. So I’m just going to keep on writing in my own way, fucking clauses and phrases up not just to throw the AI into a steaming tizzy, but because I like to write this way. I like to be unique, colorful, and I have made peace with the fact that I’m an imperfect slob with a propensity for profanity.

So if AI wants to scrape what I’m doing here, have at it. But talking like this takes practice, and an attitude of ‘I truly don’t give a shit’. Because when a woman of my age says she doesn’t care, like I do, she means it. I don’t fucking care that this world is fucked up because there’s not a lot I can do about it other than live my life to the best of my ability, and keep on writing in my own way.

And I’ve seen all the eighties movies were AI takes over and blows everything to Hell and the survivors have to navigate a post-nuclear apocalyptic zombie-filled wasteland, which is why I want to get a van and kit it out to where I can live off the grid if I have to.

Van Life Dream – Still Going Strong

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I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I wrote a blog entry specifically about what I call my ‘van life dream’. No, I don’t have the van and not one dime saved towards it. That’s because being broke is expensive but I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about that.

I keep reading articles on van life and sadly, most of them are about how it didn’t quite work out for people. Okay, I’m good with that but as I keep reading these articles that are all beginning to sound the same, I’ve realized my expectations about life on the road are minimal and flexible compared with most people. Also, I’m doing it as a dirt-broke middle-aged dumb ass without a college degree. I’m not fleeing corporate life because I walked away from that shit almost ten years ago. I like to think I’ve been on sort of a practice run with the way I’ve lived in the last ten years so living in a van will be like a luxury to me.

The core dream of van life for me has remained steady- something simple and easy to take care of with minimal overhead. And yes, if I spend a lot of time in parking lots and Wal-Marts and Cracker Barrels, I’m not going to give a shit what anyone thinks. Because the last article I read was about this modern-day yuppie couple (what do they call thirty-something Millennials these days?) who set out in a van to work remotely and camp out all the time. The dude said they spent time in parking lots and were worried that they were going to look ‘unhoused’ (the newest term for ‘homeless’). Also, that campgrounds weren’t always like the pictures and things broke down and la la la….

First, I will freely admit here I’m a cranky middle-aged Gen X bitch and yes, I do think Millennials are a bit on the whiny entitled side. Camping to me means roughing it unless you’re into the glamping thing. Also, if you’re worried about what ‘someone’ (who in all likelihood only exists in your imagination) thinks about you parking your van in a parking lot… well, grow up. I’ve committed myself to pushing the thought of what that wonderful dumb-ass anonymous ‘someone’ will think out of my mind once and for all. Basically, I expect life on the road to be anything but glamourous, to be hard at times, and for shit to happen without any notice.

Second, I’m not working remote for a corporate job. I work for me, myself, and I and I live pretty cheap. I just need enough to live on and anything extra will just be put into my shit-happens-rainy-day-savings-fund. Also, I plan to build out my van as simply as possible so I can fix stuff with tools and spare parts if at all possible.

Three, I’m not running from anything or anyone. This isn’t about going on the road to get away from something, but just to see where the road takes me. If at some point in the future, I decide to stop and stay in one place, that’s my choice. No one knows what life will bring, or how things will turn out, and I’m pretty good at rolling with the punches so to speak.

I’m not going to treat van life as a test run, like I’m just feeling it out. Nor will I treat it like it’s going to be for the rest of my life either. If it does turn out that way, fine. If not, fine, too. I’m going to treat it like another chapter in my life, another era if you will. Life is a series of chapters and eras and there is no need to be stuck in one all your life for whatever fucked up reason.

I’m working my ass off now to get away from thinking about what ‘someone’ might say, or that ‘someone’ will come and tell me I can’t do this. No one told me I couldn’t be a caregiver and that I should step aside. But they sure as hell told me I couldn’t be ‘normal’ when that would have been one hell of a lot easier. And then when I didn’t give up and quit the shit hit the fan. But I survived that. I also survived my father being an asshole to me when I applied for what would turn out to be my most-successful call center gig. I didn’t back down and I got the gig and did good in it. And I left that gig on my own terms, and without burning a bridge.

Can I earn a living on the road? Yes. How? Any way I have to. I’m simple, though, and I don’t need a lot of money to live on. Also, I’ve been my own boss for the last ten years and frankly, I’m the best boss I’ve ever had. My father told me most people have to be told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Then he looked right at me and said, “Not you, though.” I’ve done pretty good even though there’s wreckage behind me. But no one is perfect and if anyone says they are, they’re full of shit.

So, the van life dream is still on. And there’s no deadline, nor is there any set plan, and most of all, I sure as hell will be grateful to be rumbling over the road in my turtle shell-era.

Dreams of the Road (poem)

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A new poem that I hope you will like, about what I dream about a lot these days: life on the road.

Poem – Dreams of the Road – pdfDownload

Conversations From the Road – On the Road Again

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This morning I was on the road a little after three a.m. (yes, I do up that early most days, and have now for the last couple of years or so) and by daybreak, I had been from one end of the city, and county. Best of all though, and best of every morning I’m on the road, is I got to see the sunrise. I love the way the sky changes color from jet-black, to dark blue, then the colors of light, red, orange, yellow, and sky-blue. Then if there’s not heavy cloud cover, I get to see the sun itself slowly rise up over the horizon and into the sky. And when I see that, I say a little prayer of thanks to God for giving me another day.

I’m not a church-goer or adherent to any one religious faith or creed as I believe the Universe is seen, heard, and felt by each person in their own way. But when I ‘pray’, I’m sending my thoughts and feelings out into the Universe. I say ‘thanks’ for my own life, and I say prayers for those who are hurting, sad, lonely, or in need. A few years ago, I had a young man in the car one night and he said he was a Divinity student and asked if he could pray for me. I told him I was okay and thankful for what I had, and that I pray for others in need.

I don’t do ‘resolutions’ because I don’t feel like I need to focus on ‘improving’ myself because I’ve done the work as the saying goes now, and I will always continue to do the work of treating and healing my wounds and doing my best to learn how to face things head-on. I’m not perfect, and I sure as hell won’t let anyone hold me to that perfection-shit either. This is why I think people should focus on learning about how and why they think and feel the way they do and to learn from that. That’s a lifelong process and not something that someone just needs to ‘get over’. Being on the road every day shows me this because I do a lot of my best thinking in the darkness before the dawn when everything is quiet and still and I’m all alone with my thoughts.

Instead, I have goals. My primary goal is to get my van up and running to where I can live and work on the road. Another goal is to work to generate income to live on from my creative work like my blog and website here and other things. Yet another goal is to try and improve my health one step at a time because I don’t do the ‘exercise-eat healthy-weight loss’ thing for some aesthetic bullshit and no one else should either.

Another big thing I want to work on this year is managing my neurodivergent-ADHD tendencies better. I don’t want sticky notes and phone numbers to be places where good intentions go to die, like they seem to do so now. I want stuff like this to be ways for me focus and concentrate and do things and not let ADHD-bullshit as I will now call it, make me immobile. Because most of all, I know it’s my ADHD-bullshit that says ‘someone’ will be pissed off at me if I do something and if that ever happens I’ll just freeze up and go silent like I did in the past. I won’t go silent ever again and in the last eight years, no one has ever come at me for this and if somehow that ever does happen, I’m more than ready.

I also want to find ways to reach out and help people, small ways because I need to take things in small steps. I want to learn how to give back because I think we need to do this now more than ever. And yet again, I have to learn how to overcome the thought that ‘someone’ will come at me for this (yes, my brain is that fucked up to where this thought comes up way too often).

I think if I didn’t have the road, I would have gone clear around the bend years ago. I think I would have ended up under a bridge somewhere lost and out of my mind if I hadn’t been able to get on the road every day and drive. I know when my Uber days I’ll end, I’ll miss it. But I know that I’ll be starting a new chapter in my life and the road of that chapter will be wide-open and ready for me.

I know the road can be hard sometimes, very hard indeed with monster traffic, gobs of idiots and assholes, and sometimes it’s like life itself. My father used to say sometimes life hands you a big bucket of steaming shit that you have to carry around for a while despite the stench that times will make you want to puke. But you have to carry it until you can find a place to put it down.

On the road, in the middle of the night, or on an early morning like today, it’s not bad at all.

So as I said this morning, from the old song ‘Signs’:

Thank you Lord, for thinking about me

I’m alive and doing fine

Songwriters: Les Emmerson

Signs lyrics © Sony/atv Acuff Rose Music, Unichappell Music Inc., Galeneye Music

Conversations From the Road – Riding Like the Wind on that Yacht-Rock Vibe

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I put on my Yacht Rock channel and what song did I get first? San Antonio native Christopher Cross’ ‘Ride Like the Wind’ featuring backing vocals by the Yacht Rock King himself, Michael McDonald. I’m kind of hoping for a miracle to get to see Mr. Cross when he plays here in San Antonio soon because by all accounts, he’s a really nice guy and a great performer.

I thought about doing a rant this morning about how no one in the media seem to go after the trolls and assholes and ask them why they are the way they are, but that’s pointless because one, you’re not going to get a straight answer and two, no answer is going to make up for the shit they’ve spewed. Now the media and other pundits are ‘shocked’ that those of us who have been subjected to that abuse want to get away from it and stay away from it. I’m beginning to embrace that because frankly, I’ve had enough of that shit.

Now, I will keep up on the shit-show that in our world right now but I’m not going to wallow in it like I have for far too long. Instead, I’ll rant a little here and there but once I let that loose, I’m turning on the music and thinking about things that aren’t so damn ugly and useless. Yes, I said the word ‘useless’ in reference to people spewing bullshit and hate and lies simply because they can. Personally, I’d like to knock people on their ass for being assholes but as my father used to say, it would be like beating the shit out of a drunk or an idiot. Because as my father used to say after that, it’s pointless to do that because five minutes after you finish beating the crap out of some idiot-asshole that, they won’t remember why you did that to them in the first place.

So dear readers, pace yourself. Because for the next four years, give or take, things are probably going to get a hell of a lot worse before they’ll get better. So party like it’s 1999 or the end of the world and feel fine like REM sang so well. I’m just trying to focus on feeling good because I think my brain has finally figured out that no one in my life is going to shit on me for that. And if someone ever does crawl out of the muck and say something stupid, I’m just going to look at them and go, “Wow, you really do have shit for brains, don’t you?” And before I can listen to their spluttering reply, I’m walking away.

Because dear readers, we all have places to go, people to see, and things to do and that doesn’t have to include dealing with idiots. For some stupid-ass reason I honestly don’t give a shit about anymore, there are people who feel like those of us who are just trying to mind our own business and do our own thing, have to stop and listen to some dumb-ass spew shit at us because that dumb-ass thinks and says, they’re ‘special’. No, they’re not ‘special’ just because they’ve made demands on people when they had no right to, tried to dictate people’s thoughts and feelings, or just ran their mouths without thinking about it.

Soft rock rose up in the 1970’s after the tumult of the sixties and early seventies after Nixon was run out of office, people just wanted to relax and take it easy. My generation is now discovering this because we were the first generation that really took it in the shorts as my late father would say with student debt, a shitty job market, gaining and losing what little we were able to get, and most of all, deal with the young Republican shit-heads we went to high school with in workplaces and other parts of our lives. Now we’re just leaving them behind and although it’s kind of funny to watch them get in a lather about being ignored and no one paying attention to them, it’s a funny thing I can do without quite well. Because I sure as hell don’t need some uptight asshole telling me I’m not ‘cool’ or ‘with it’ or any bullshit like that because I won’t be a raging hate-outrage idiot.

So let’s chill out, kick back and relax. Focus on the things that make you happy- a job that you actually like if you’re lucky to have one like that (I do!), kids and grandkids (especially the little ones because they’re the best!), pets because at least someone’s always happy to see you when you get home, good music and good vibes, and most of all, holding on to what’s good in this world and doing your part to make it so. Work towards your goals and dreams like I am, whether it’s a van, a house on the coast, or just the ability to get away from it for a little while.

Another thing is being happy is not an act of defiance. To me, it’s a human right because as my father also used to say (yes, he was full of wisdom like no one I’ve ever known in my life), you have the right to be happy, and you don’t have to walk around feeling sad and sorry for yourself. Because deep down, happiness matters and it’s not something that can be taken from you. So don’t give it up for anyone either because trust me, the average asshole doesn’t know what to do with misery so don’t give them happiness that they don’t know what to do with, either.

Ride like the wind, all night long, breezin’ away to the good in this life.

Conversations From the Road – Holding the Line With a Yacht-Rock Vibe

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I thought about doing a lovely ranting post about bullying, especially the bullying of transgender people by members of the United States Congress, most notably South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace (she’s bullying the first transgender woman elected to Congress, Sarah McBride). Personally, I think Nancy Mace is mostly coo-coo for cocoa puffs as the old saying goes (she’s posted like two hundred times on the hellsite Twitter/X about this and her entire staff up and quit on a regular basis). But I’m leaving that one for a later date because right now, I feel like it’s pissing in the wind and I think I’ve made my feelings for that kind of bullying bullshit very clear (if you’re not clear, just go through my blog and read everything since November 5 of this year).

So I’ve put on the Yacht Rock channel on my music service (I’m on Amazon Music) and am just writing this out. Because I know when I think about my yacht-rock vibe as I call it, I feel better. And maybe that’s my privilege right now in this world- an ability to get away from ugly bullshit unlike other people. But I’ve wallowed in that shit for a long time myself, about eight years to be more precise. And if there is one thing I’ve learned, once the damage is done, there’s no going back and changing it. And sometimes you need to take care of yourself, too.

I also feel like chilling out to a yacht-rock vibe is an act of defiance, too. I know that might sound crazy or stupid, but I think it’s real. The bullies of the world as I’ll call them here, don’t like their targets to be happy. I speak from experience on this one and I’m sure there are people reading this who understand what I’m talking about here. How many of you have had someone shit all over you simply for liking something, or smiling when your bully is in a shit-mood and taking it out on everyone else?

Right now, if you don’t want to rant-and-rave every single day about some bullshit in the news, don’t do it. Burn it out in your mind, or behind the wheel like I do when I’m alone on my early morning runs. Then take the road to some place better than the roadside roach motel where the bullies live.

I think that’s another thing that makes me love the whole yacht-rock vibe as I call it- the call of the road. I’ve always felt better behind the wheel and over the last seven and a half years of being an Uber driver, I’ve been grateful for being able to do that more times than I can remember. So many times over these past seven and a half years, if I was feeling like shit, I could say to hell with that and hit the road, and make money in the process. And sometimes even sitting in afternoon traffic made me feel better because I couldn’t go anywhere else and do otherwise.

But I want to circle back to an earlier point here: why should feeling good and or getting away from bullshit feel like an act of defiance? I think it’s because we’ve heard the message for way too damn long that we have to sit and listen to someone’s bullshit because they have a ‘right’ to speak to us. No one has the ‘right’ to speak to you like shit so if they start up with that, you can walk away. And thankfully, people are starting to realize that. It’s not running away to ‘safe spaces’ and being little wimps as right-wing bullies online like to say. It’s about going to a place where people aren’t mean to you, to where people care about you and don’t treat you like shit. What the hell is so fucking hard about that for bullies to understand? You know what, that’s not a question that deserves an answer from anyone other than said bullies. And those answers won’t make a difference anyway, so hit the road and leave them behind.

Even though we all know things won’t always be alright, or okay even, we know sometimes they can work themselves out. I know things can feel better if I don’t give in to the need to rant-and-rave every time something pisses me off. I think you can pick your battles as my father used to say, and that it’s okay to turn away and let people wallow in their assholery-bullshit. Because when I first started thinking about hitting the road I worried people would accuse me of running away from my problems. Now I just don’t give a shit what anyone might ‘think’ about me hitting the road or why or any part of my decisions. That’s a true sign of healing when you let go of petty bullshit like that and leave it behind.

Speaking of the yacht-rock vibe, when I hit the Ventura Highway in California, I’m putting on the song by America when that happens. In fact, I think I’m going to work on a road mix of yacht-rock for the road. Because it’s nice to have that dream to look forward to, and to have a faint glimmer of hope that the incoming administration might continue to fuck up (Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz just withdrew himself from consideration for the job, and since he resigned his seat in the House, he’s also unemployed at the moment) and buy us some more time to get things right, and hit the road with nothing to look back on, or look for the mushroom cloud.

And as REO Speedwagon are singing now to me, “I believe it’s time for me to fly.”

My Van Life Dream – Barbeque and the Road

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Today’s blog title comes from a line in the movie ‘Independence Day’. It’s when Will Smith’s character is dragging the alien he captured in his parachute across a burning-hot desert. He’s grousing out loud at the alien about how his Fourth of July weekend was ruined and then he finally yells out:

“I could have been at a barbeque!”

After the Election and the fact it seems like the incoming administration is on a hellacious trainwreck of a course, I’ve wanted to yell that out loud. Yesterday I wrote how I wanted to be organizing with a smile and now I’m organizing for a shit-storm. I feel the same way about my van-life dream here- I wanted to do pursue it with a smile but now it’s just sheer determination to get on the road and get on the move as it’s easier to outrun storms than it is to hunker down and ride them out.

Yes, I’m pissed off at Trump voters for buying into his bullshit and getting their feel-good dopamine hit off his constant barrage of outrage and incoming fascism. I wanted to go on the road with a smile on my face, enjoying peace and prosperity and seeing things get better day by day. I wanted these idiots to maybe start pulling their heads out of their asses little by little and turn off Fox News. I wanted to see Alex Jones continue to get his balls busted (seeing The Onion buy his site Info Wars this week was awesome!). Most of all, I just wanted to be happy and not scared shitless then have to turn that fear to grim determination.

Yes, I wanted to be a middle-aged hippy-trippy lady bouncing around with her geriatric dog and adolescent cat having fun and writing about it. I wanted to go wherever the road took me and make people happy with good stories and pictures and adventures. I wanted to give people something good to feel about and be a shining light and yes, if people wanted to hit the road with me I wanted to show them how. Oh, I’m not giving up on going wherever the road takes me but if the shit-storm hits as hard as I think it could, I might not always have that choice.

And that’s the biggest pain in my ass about this turn of events in this country- a bunch of idiots voted to bring on a shit-storm because they live in their damn little bubbles and have been told all their precious lives that anything outside that bubble that isn’t exactly like them is to be feared, hated, and shit all over. To these idiots, cites are post-apocalyptic hellscapes, the border is being overrun by millions of migrants, and migrant-Joe is coming to take their jobs. All of this is so far from the truth the distance can be measured in light-years.

But I’m not giving up on my van-life dream, and I’m not giving up on writing on the road and bringing a smile to people’s faces whenever I can. I want to show people there is a world outside their bubble that’s not bad at all, and most of all, that it’s not something to be feared and hated. I hope to maybe get them to puncture their bubble and venture out of their right-wing echo chamber. And besides, I promised my dog her golden years would be good ones where she would get to go new places and meet lots of new people who would love and pet her and pay proper tribute to her awesome diva-ness.

But from time to time, I’m going to grouse like Will Smith’s character in the burning desert and think I could have been at a barbeque instead of dragging some smelly alien carcass across the desert. I’m going to grouse about how people have butt-hurt feelings about their little bubble being hit upon simply because there are people out there that aren’t exactly like them, and no, that’s not being shoved down their throats. I’m not shoving anything down anyone’s throat because I’m not all nasty and shit, and I’m not a part of the right-wing hate-outrage machine. With my stuff here and elsewhere, it’s always take it or leave it, and people are free to come and go of their own free will.

In the end, the call of the road is stronger than ever before. Now I just have to knuckle down and get to it instead of maybe taking a little more time. It’s like I have to train for a freaking marathon when I just wanted to pack up for a road trip and stop along the way for anything I forgot. I wanted to go to a barbeque and not drag a smelly carcass behind me to a secret base in the desert.

But like the good guys in the movie ‘Independence Day’, I won’t give up and I’ll kick ass if I have to in my own way.

I could have been at a barbeque, but I can still go to one after all the shit is said and done and the battles are won.

My Van Life Dream – Manifesting the Turtle-Top

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2001 Chevy Turtle-Top Van – van pick from National Van Sales website – by the way, not my van

The above picture is of what is called a ‘turtle top’ van. It’s called ‘turtle top’ because the shape is rounded. I like that shape and it’s an older design so finding a van in that style might be more affordable for me. Personally, I think it looks more like an old camper-style van from the 70’s/80’s so it’s a bit of a retro look, too.

Over the last few years I’ve been reading about this idea of ‘manifesting’ your goals and dreams. At first, I wrote this off as a serious case of ‘woo woo’ but now I can see where it comes from. It’s not just giving voice to your goals and dreams and letting the world know what you want to do, but I also feel it’s putting it out there in front of yourself to make you think about it and start to work towards making those dreams a reality.

Now, another reason I had trouble with this idea for so long was that I had a fear that if I started doing anything to make my dreams a reality, shit would happen and knock me on my ass.

Newsflash here: Shit will happen no matter what. All you can do is roll with it and deal with it as best as you can.

Second, in the past I had more than a few people crap all over me for reasons known only to them. It’s taken me a long time to realize most people who crap all over people’s goals and dreams don’t do it because of their ‘best intentions.’. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions as my father always used to say. Most of the time, it was done out of ignorance and insecurity, and also a fear of anything that deviated from their narrow little worlds.

When I saw that turtle-top van yesterday, it was like a huge klieg light went off inside my mind. It was like I heard a perfect tune in my mind and I realized this is the design I’ve been looking for. Then when I saw it was older, cheaper, and that I wouldn’t need a CDL (commercial drivers license) to drive it, I realized I’d found my van type. I’ve been looking at various models for years but this one finally clicked for me.

So when this click happened for me yesterday, I realized I’m working on manifesting this into reality because now I know exactly what to look for now. And I’m talking about this because if you’re reading this and you’re struggling with finding something, keep at it. Because unless someone is pointing a gun right at your head with their finger on the trigger, you’re not under any deadline.

Another thing with manifesting is I think you have to be ready for it in some specific way, though I don’t think you’ll know that specific way until you reach that point in time. For years, as I’ve been out and about I’ve looked closely at various van designs and studied them but what I saw yesterday finally clicked for me. I realized I wanted something more casual, and yes, even a bit retro looking. I’m a Generation X kid who secretly wanted a van to travel around in and now I’m a Generation X middle-aged kid who is now actively looking for her home.

For the longest time, I’ve always felt I had to be ‘serious’ all the time, especially as I got older.

Why can’t someone my age have fun?

I’m not going to let anyone answer that question for me and you shouldn’t let anyone answer for you, either. Because as I will always say, your job in life is not to pull someone’s head out of their ass fort them. That’s not your job, and it’s not anyone else’s job either. I know about fifty percent of the population lost their shit in 2020 and they didn’t have a lot to lose to begin with. But don’t let someone from that population group tell you what to do, or let them get inside your head.

I’ve been thinking for a while I’d paint my future-van green, but with a turtle-top that would work very well. So yes, someday I’ll be driving around in a turtle-green van seeing everything I can and I hope little kids like it. We don’t need to give up our whimsical childhood imagination and fun just because some uptight moron tells us to.

Finally, the late Jimmy Buffet had a really great song called ‘Off to See Lizard’ and the last lines from the chorus definitely apply here:

Deja deja deja vu
Believe it and it will come true
Veja veja veja du
What works for me might work for you

Songwriters: Jimmy Buffett / Jay R Oliver

Off to See the Lizard lyrics © Jay Oliver Music