don't test me

I am not, by nature or by persuasion, a bad person. I still feel guilty for the two 50¢ pieces I stole when I was a teenager, and for lying to my mother when she asked me how much toilet paper I was using (she was trying to teach us to be sparing and not wasteful). I told her three squares, but I had really used five. I was 14.

Since my teens, I have felt pride in my work ethic and my honor system. White fibs aside, ("I'm sorry, I missed your call even though the phone was in my pocket") I like to be straight with people; I don't lie, cheat or steal. And I am sensitive. I may or may not cry when I get too hungry, or when someone says something really sweet, or when someone is a little bit mean to me.

If you're a person who applies "badness" to people, don't test my reflexes. I've learned that you can usually tell a lot about people by the way they anticipate others or what they expect from others. I am quick to judge when I feel uneasy with someone, and that feeling is often (although not always) proven true. Which makes the following statement feel mean and honest at the same time: If you make me nervous to be around, and I feel like I should watch what I say and keep most of myself to myself when I'm around you....

Our time together will be limited.

I cherish my friendships, and while I fault myself and some of my dear ones for being literally ridiculous in our supportiveness ("You acted crazy and he didn't like it? Bastard!") knowing they know me, and that they understand what motivates my actions is comforting. I don't worry (too often) that I've been misunderstood or misread.

Of course, when I say something idiotic I may stay up all night worrying about it and later have a very awkward conversation trying to explain myself. This happens from time to time; I never said I'm free from foot-in-mouth disease.

A rather genius Garden Shed via Wolf Eyebrows

where home is

Every day I drive by a once-beautiful old house that went up in flames in December. I've seen it since the day after, when everything was still soggy from the fire truck hoses, it's many windows burned out, a highchair fried and crispy sitting on the porch, every door gone, and giant holes in the roof.

After a week or so a wire fence went up, and pieces slowly disappeared. The siding was mostly removed, and dumpsters were filled with the wreckage inside. Today as I headed in to work, there was an excavator digging at it, and half the house was gone, leaving a blackened half-husk where home used to be.

It made me think (as many things seem to do) what is home? And where?

After riding on a motorcycle for 6 months and through 12 countries, rarely staying in any place for more than one night, (and with a bag about the size of a grocery sack), I learned that for me home is wherever I am, and sometimes who I am with. It is the love I have cultivated with family and friends, and the feeling that wherever I am, I am home.

Don't get me wrong, I have been known to form strong attachments to things. Things like vintage hat boxes and dresses, travel photos, my favorite books, pretty dishes and aprons. But I learned after a rather brutal separation with all of what I considered my 'home' that these things merely surround me in a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing way. They do not make me homeless by not existing.

Well, unless my house burns down.

Which makes me wonder if I'd feel the same if my things were taken suddenly by fire or theft, and not simply sold or tucked away in a storage unit.

I'm thinking probably almost definitely most likely not. But I'm glad I had a chance to see what it felt like.

The Ballard House Fire, and Engine 21 out of Greenwood.