First Launch

Today marks the end of my first month as an on the road expediter and I have to say this is the most bizarre job I have ever had. In many ways it is both the most difficult and easiest job of any I have held. Allow me to elaborate further: with many jobs, you tend to be doing the same tasks over and over again repetitively on a weekly basis. As an expedite trucker, my job is always changing. The route I take, the hours, the load, the scenery. It never stays the same. In my first week alone I took loads from Indiana to Illinois, Oklahoma to California, and then back to Indiana and to Ohio. This month I have gone over the Appalachian mountains, the Grapevine, the Sierras, and through the Mojave desert through Salt Lake City. I drove through decrepit towns, thriving cities, rolling gold hills, beautiful mountains, and we even got stuck on the George Washington Bridge in New York for two and a half hours.

I have hauled car parts, toxic paint, light fixtures, shoes, and even a 15 foot single 47 lb tube half way across the country. I remember that last one the best because of the absurdity of it. We got paid very well to rush that seemingly unimportant small thing across the states.

The best thing about this job aside from getting to travel is the opportunity I have been given to spend with my Dad. All my life he has been a somewhat enigmatic figure. He was always working and we saw him sparingly. When I was younger, he worked nights and slept during the day. In more recent years, he was home more often, but I don't remember a time where I spent more than 72 hours with him. I feel as though I have gotten to know him more and he has gotten to know me a little better perhaps. Every day there seemed to be a moment of "Oh I didn't know you something..." in some regard. A song or type of food, what movies I have never seen or what books I have read that he might like. It has been wonderful. But there have been moments.  He told me beforehand "Just warning you, I am going to yell at you at some point." It wasn't threat, he just has a temper. I understood this and equally warned him, "Alright, but I'm going to warn you as well. I am going to cry." Just as he struggles to control his temper, I struggle to control my emotions. 

All in all I am glad to be back home, among familiar buildings, and back in my own room with my own thing, and able to spend time with my family and see friends. It feels strange to be gone for a month and return as if you were never gone. Nothing bad so much as I am very much reminded of the things that are most important to me.

Dawning of a new Adventure

Two more days at the bakery and that will be it. There is a definite sense of excitement and anxiety, but also one of melancholy and something I can only describe as nostalgia. I spent two and a half years working at this bakery and I can honestly say I will miss the people here very much. I will miss the comradery and working in tandem to accomplish a goal and most importantly fulfilling that goal. I will miss the creative freedom of filling the cake case and playing with different techniques. I will miss learning new things from people who have been decorating cakes for as long as I have been alive.

I will miss the free sweets.

However, there is a reason why I chose to move on from this job. The stress, ungodly work load, pathetic wages, and horrible customers? Yeah, I will not miss that AT ALL.  Yes, go kindly find your way into oncoming traffic.

At this point in my life, I am still unsure of what I want and have a feeling that I may never know. I always thought you kind of molded yourself into a certain shape to fit into a groove that would lead you to wear you wanted to go, but it seems that life is more like finding anything that fits you, even if it is not a good fit, and running it. Most of the time you're blind to where it is leading you and you only hope there isn't a wall up ahead that will smash your bones.

What I am about to go try and do is not easy, it is not ideal, hell it can be down right deadly! But it is something. I can't say right now if I will like living in a truck for weeks at a time. I can't say if I won't still want to go to school afterwards. But what I can say is this:

I am ready for a new adventure.

Mitch Hedburg Was Right

Mitch Hedberg once said: "Man, I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just gonna ask 'em where they're goin' an' hook up with'm later..."

Then he died of a drug overdose in New Jersey.

 ...take that as you will.


Dreams are a funny thing. When you're a kid, you dream of becoming something awe-inspiring. Well, at least to you. Lots of people have a philosophy of putting everything they have into achieving their dream while on the other side of the spectrum there are those who condemn the 'follow your dreams' manifesto.

"Dreams don't put food on the table."

"Money won't make you happy."

I've struggled with this notion of being happy for a long time. My generation was part of such a large push for college education. I was made to think, since the 6th grade, that I would fail at life and be almost assuredly miserable if I did not go to college and get a degree. To my school councilors and teachers, it didn't matter WHAT you went to college for or for how long or what school. We just knew we better get our freshly graduated ass cheeks into a college course and soon. Well, for me it seems college remains illusive. And in many respects it might be just as well seeing as I've ska-doodled through so many career choices and possible majors in the time I've been thinking about school. In my heart, I want to be an artist. It almost doesn't matter what kind of artist. I just want to CREATE. But I was always reminded of how risky such a career path was. For every great artist there are thousands of others who didn't make it and not for lack of talent or drive. The Starving Artist is very much an apt stereotype.

Plus, tuition at art colleges is really high.

However, I didn't want a job I didn't like. I had an epiphany later about my art and career choices, something that never occured to me before: no matter what I chose to peruse as a career, I would always be an artist. Neither was relevant to the other. Degrees in art are no less mandatory to being an artist than knowing how the human body works is mandetory to being human. It just IS. And somewhere in my twisted mind I had come up with this notion that if I don't get a JOB as an artist I won't BE an artists. Artists are not like Doctors. No degree required. Passion and a little talent is all you need.     

So I'm going to take the Beatles advice and just let it be...

My art is who I am. So if I decided trucking is the right job for me, I will still continue to draw and paint and write. Worrying about things like my destiny and such won't do anything but give me ulcers and make me miserable through my own self subjugation.

I am my own worst enemy, but I am primed and ready to defend myself from...myself.


Y'know, that sounded a lot better in my head...