Soldier Mode

Through a hundred-proof crack of fatigue, I slipped. Revealed a rare glimpse of my bruised humanity. Briefly opened the split curtains of emotional camouflage. Raged openly in a measured overnight temper tantrum.  I threw up honest words. All the way across an ocean. The words not often accessible to those of my gender. Or station. But I wrote them all the same. Then I collapsed, exhausted and exposed, into another night of 517 nothingness.  Alone. But weakness isn’t allowed. Not for those whose destiny it is to provide, anyway. The ones responsible for protecting the weak. The silent guardians of righteous intentions. The stoic peacekeepers of emotional equilibrium. The ones tasked with the difficulty of building a new world from nothing. Only to be rewarded with …

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The Gekkering

The Gekkering i will make joyful the bright noise of my reimagination. i will stand determined on the side of more patient angels. i will walk unfettered by the stain of savage predator hearts. i will run free across the less travelled pathways. i will adapt quickly to the unpredictability of rhythm. i will hunt joys of better days lurking on tomorrow’s horizon. i will write honest the story of my vagabond experience. i will achieve what is hard; i will demand what is great. i am feral. i am free. i am FOX. ##)S.D.(## 21 JAN 25

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40 Miles and a Lemonade

She had told me about it the day before.  And it was just my kind of ridiculous.   So I had to make it happen.  There really wasn’t fuck all else to do with the morning, beyond a few errands and the lingering angst of the tin waiting to be kicked.  But that was still later’s problem when I first hit the road.  And I was determined to make the most of the day.  Because just like I tell everyone who will listen, life is much more fun when you say “yes.” It didn’t matter that I would be driving over 40 miles round trip.  Or that I planned on dropping a 3,000% markup on a single glass of lemonade.  I told her I would be there.  …

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Ring Around the Mitten

Good morning, Michigan! So there it was again, the savage joy of yet another empty mitten Saturday. A morning spent drinking familiar grounds. Absorbing similar hits. Just fucking around, waiting to find out—all words and no foreplay make the lonely fox a grouch. Summer is here in full force. The signs are unmistakable. Everything from the constriction of humidity pressing me out of The City, to the great waves of funk blanketing fields of corn growing taller than me out beyond the limits of the city. Whatever the cause of that unique odor, it certainly helps the eventual harvest. Because great surging waves of corn shimmered as it rippled in a wind I could not feel. It looked like the fields were breathing as I headed …

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When Foxes Cry

It’s always strange to be driving during the in-between time. Those few weird weeks when winter hasn’t fully surrendered her grip on these familiar flyover fields. And spring has yet to fully pounce in to freshen the world with newness. The scraggly grass, filling median strips and clinging to shoulders, hasn’t completed its transition to a brighter lushness from the drab browns of a winter’s purge. The shadows of skeletal trees strobed across a broken highway, making the world jump and skitter at 78 miles an hour. Indiana was well behind my tires. But I was still pushing hard north. The day had been a weird melange of emotion. One which would require a great many more miles to fully process and I was doing my …

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Run! It’s a Copper!

The other week I found myself lucky enough to have won an online auction for a sterling that nobody else seemed interested in (I was the only bidder).  Even with shipping and the additional handling charges added on, it was $20 typer. I knew going into it that the paint was a bit rough: Not too bad at first glance, BUT in the long, sordid history of this typer, it seems as though someone had spilled coffee onto it.  So even after cleaning the paint, the stains remained.  So, it was time to play.  But first, some more “as found” pics…. Showing some of the surprises inside, along with coffee stains…. Such a dirty girl…. Scuffs and stains…. Worn and dusty…. First step, disassembly and washing …

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