The Chevy Corvette Syndrome. This is by far the most common accessory to a mid-life crisis. For some men, it may be another make and model, but the effect is still the same. For me, I've been contemplating either the Mercedes-Benz CLK-350:



Or the Jaguar XJ8:



Neither of which suit my personality in any way, which is kind of the allure, I suppose. "But don't you already have a motorcycle, Chuck?" Well, yes, but I've been over it since I got to California. So it gots to go. Not doing it for me anymore. The Jaguar, however, may be the most attractive car built in the last 30 years.

I'm pretty sure I won't get either of these cars. For one, both are really hard to find in hardtop like these two photos show; almost all are convertibles, and I am just simply not that much of a douchebag yet.

I am pretty sure I want a car. I'm leaning toward a used Audi or Accura now. Still somewhat out of character for me but a little more practical.

        

I got fed up with my existence (again) last night about 7:30 and decided to go for one of those "start and see where I end up" runs around Palmdale (in the rain).

So first, I hadn't planned to run, so I hadn't properly hydrated. So I downed a pint of water from the filter on the fridge, jumped into running clothes with a hat and gloves and stretched a little.

I went out of the development and turned left, toward 25th West, then turned North on 25th. By the time I got across Amargosa "creek" (it never has water), I had to pee. Where I grew up, this is no problem if you're equipped as a male person, but in desert suburbia, this is a real dilemma.

Fortunately there are high block walls everywhere and in the Friday night shadows, no one knows why you're smiling from behind that wall.

By the time I got to Vons grocery store on Rancho Vista, I had to go again, but this time there were public facilities around. It's easy to forget that the big guy in the over sized sweatshirt and running pants who's drenched with rain and sweat looks perfectly normal running on the sidewalk, but once he enters a somewhat upscale grocery store, he's a whole other thing.

Also, I'm wearing all black.

I have on a black ski cap.

And I'm wearing black gloves.

So, the sweaty big guy, running across desert suburbia to ease his troubled mind, enters Vons with the intensity of a murderer, looking for a bathroom.

After frightening two old ladies and the girl selling flowers, I donned a smile and took the gloves and hat off.

On the way home I smiled from behind the tall block wall again too.

        

It was Henry Rollins who said once in an interview in 2003 that young men should lift weights to feel what it's like to have control over their body and have it react to the things they do to it. Between the weight I've lost, the huge increases I've made running, and now the tone and build I'm getting from just a month of weight lifting, I have to agree that it's a pretty awesome feeling.

I remember a dream I had about a year ago that I was running, sprinting across a field. I woke up in bed, about 245 pounds at the time and knew that if I tried I couldn't run more than 100 yards or so. I wanted that feeling, that freedom in the worst way. Well, now I have it. I ran 5 miles in 52 minutes the other day. Five 10-minute miles in a row. I've increased most of my free weights by 50% in just a month.

The human body is amazing.

It's pouring rain here now, as it has been all week, so I am only lifting tonight. Saturday will probably be my next run, I may try for a slow 10 miles.

        

Some points in your life, you just go through stuff and feel mostly like crap all day. I'm at one of those points in life.

It's not insurmountable or oppressive, but I feel generally like crap all day and would rather... hard to say what I'd rather do. I'd rather be doing just what I'm doing but feel better, I guess. It's probably a sign that I'm not all that bad.

I feel healthy and I feel my talents are sought after at work and at home. But I'm set upon with a general malaise that is hard to define.

It may be an early mid-life crisis, if I believed in such things. Though I do feel sometimes like a fast, black car and a girlfriend would fix me. But he diagnosis of that illness would simply read: SEXUALLY FUNCTIONAL MALE HUMAN.

My whole life I've been a sensitive, intelligent, largely well-adjusted guy. I've always known the well-adjusted part would unravel at some point. And probably at the exact point at which all other things are going as good as possible.

I'm probably just performing the natural introspection one does when you realize the world has rewarded you beyond your talents and contributions.

        

For more than a year this blog was one of the best parts of my life. It gave me a reason to do or at least try to think something interesting every day, or at least five days a week. Facebook has made the contract with friends less of an issue, but I still don't have any place to put my thoughts down in detail, and no place to go back and look through past adventures.

So if for no other reason than to create a journal, I want to make this a habit again.

I've picked up and lost a few habits since the last time I was a regular blogger. I watch what I eat and drink much more than I did then and I now run every day and lift weights every other day. I've lost a little over 50 pounds since then and am in better shape than I have been since the mid-90s.

So I'm no stranger to choosing good habits over bad and can add this habit back to my routine if I chose.

There has been a good bit of drama here in the high desert since we last spoke. Not the least of which was the Station fire, which came as close as about 10 miles from here in Acton.



These were taken the last week of August. It was the most surreal sky I've ever seen.
 
 



Last week, I went up into the Angeles National Forest to see the burn area.





All of this was scrub brush with stands of pines and poplars. It wasn't a lush landscape by Eastern standards, but was welcome greenery for the desert weary. Now it's a harsh, barren wasteland.



It was mile upon mile of hell on Earth. Ash and dust were blowing around. Areas where last winter I drove through dense, tall pines were now just rocky knolls. I drove 38 miles in one direction with the same decimated landscape and only saw a small fraction of the fire's total area.

Now, the rains have come; three storms stacked in succession out in the Pacific to wash away much of what the fire left.

But as with all of nature's processes, the fire will burn, the land will wash away and find equilibrium, then the seeds will germinate and start the cycle again, stronger and better than before.



I'll head back up there in March and see what nature decides to do with this place.

        

We all know Kanye West is stupid. In fact, he may in fact be retarded. But now he's gone and done something no one can ignore and brush off as simply eccentric. He needs help and I think only the Pasturelands West Neo-Educational Doctrine's (PWNED) 12-step recovery program can help.

1. Admit you are stupid, your actions have gone from being awkwardly and misguidedly eccentric to being unfathomably stupid; but you no longesr have control over the stupid.
2. Come to believe that there is a power greater than yourself that can restore your sanity (Jay-Z).
3. Turn your will and your life over to Jay-Z as you understand Him.
4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of your life. Make special note of the fact that the president called you a jackass; and while 49% of the US thinks he’s a terrorist, communist, or at least vaguely Muslim, everyone agreed with his assessment of you.  
5. Admit to Jay-Z, yourself, and Beyonce (not in that order) the exact nature of your stupidity (see #4).
6. When you are entirely ready, have Jay-Z remove all these defects of character by mentioning on the Tonight Show that he might work with you some day.
7. Humbly ask Him to produce your next album.
8. Make a list of people you’ve harmed (the US Census is in 2010, that list is a good start), and become willing to make amends to all of them.
9. Make direct amends to as many people as possible, but start with that sweet child you humiliated on national TV the other day.
10. Continue to take personal inventory and realize that your kind of self-centeredness and stupidity is unfathomable to the rest of us and likely based in hard-wiring of the brain and really isn’t curable.
11. Pray for constant contact with Jay-Z and for His will to show throughout your remaining years.
12. Release an album produced by Jay-Z and carry the message of the horrors of being stupid and self-obsessed to others as you appear on as many talk shows as exist. You’ll know you’ve recovered when Ellen accepts you onto her show.

        

... but not this time of year.

        

I first saw him about a week ago. He's exactly like the other hummingbirds, but in desert cammo. Like if you saw and F-16 painted for jungle warfare and another painted for desert warfare. He was just like the normal birds, but painted khaki rather than olive drab.

So today got some photos of Stan.



See him near the left globe light?



So cool.



Most look like this guy. I love the retractable landing gear.

        

It's time already. Two years ago last May, I was ready to take over the world because someone of no consequence now pissed me off. I applied for a job that I didn't get until August, but I was so sure it was going to happen that, before I even had the interview, I bought the howdaddyisdoing.com domain name and set plans to live in the California desert. In some ways, I feel that I made it happen by pure force of will. Maybe I did.

No regrets.

QTY

ITEM

PRICE

1

.COM Domain Name Renewal - 2 Years

$20.04

HOWDADDYISDOING.COM

1

Private Registration Services - Renewal Length: 2.0000 Year(s)

$17.98

HOWDADDYISDOING.COM

Subtotal:   $38.02

Shipping & Handling:   $0.00

Tax:   $0.00

Total:   $38.02

See you here for two more years (PS, it was $200 to commit two years ago, so it was a much bigger commitment for someone who hadn't even interviewed yet).