Yesterday's drive was no joke. It took about 6 1/2 hours each way and I stayed awake most of the time. Wahab and Martin drove while I navigated. We got in at 6am and after that its all foggy. The fellas went to sleep and I  headed to the airport to pickup Terra.

 

Miss Terra is en route to her roots in the grand state of Pennsylvania, with a minor detour to visit me of course. It's so wonderful to see her! New York doesn't seem so tough with her around. 

 

Thursday is Wahab's last full day here so I'm sure it will be a mad dash to see last minute attractions. Unfortunately you won't be seeing us on Millionaire because we never heard back from them. Oh well, there's always 'wheel of fortune'- wait that's in Hollywood. I guess that was our only shot, what a bummer.

 

With the aide of an approacing full moon, the arc of intensity soared off the charts today. It all started with a hard lesson behind the scam that is Paypal.

 

Paypal claims to be an easy way to send and recieve money, but let me tell you it isn't so. I used their service to transfer funds from a credit card into a bank account for July rent. I found out afterwards that the money wont be fully accessible until August 1st! What a scam! I guess the silver lining is that my August rent is paid for and July's will be also after I work plan b. I'll explain at a later date.

 

 

Paypal is designed to set regular people up to be vendors or retailers,
meaning you pay through the nose and it's totally inconvenient unless
you're one of those guys selling tons of stuff on Ebay every week. I've
heard it's "easy" once you set it up. Well, it's the set-up that's
busting our backs!

I will have the $500 within two weeks, they say, but it's that second
$500 that's going to get us. Why Paypal can't "verify" my social
security number to increase my monthly withdraw limit is beyond me, but
they've promised to send literature explaining the various reasons this
could happen. My social security number is good enough for banks and
credit card and student financial aid companies, but not Paypal! You
expect this kind of garbage from the DMV, but not from a company you
CHOOSE to do business with.

In any case, our Paypal nightmare has put Mr. Joe in a worse spot
rent-wise, and I'm a heel for not reading the fine print. I bought a
lotto ticket last night, hoping to be a $290 millionaire last night so
none of us would have to worry, but only got one number. 12. Maybe we
can learn something from this number, rising to the surface, the lone
and lucky survivor of the sinking ship that was my ticket.

*****************************************************

 

So around midnight the mood began to shift for me in a positive direction when I went out dancing with the guys and Shelly to Bembe. Live precussion, salsa, hiphop, funk & soul & lots of smoke, but hey it was fun.  

 

If you couldn’t already tell from the title of this log, I’m not in some thriving metropolitan city. Instead, I’ve come to check out Terra’s hometown Halifax, PA. I’ll get to the duck story in a minute first how bout a description of the town?

 

Every road is surrounded by green stuff. No not that kind of greenery, more along the lines of trees, cornfields, grass and shrubbery.  It’s beautiful & refreshing to see plants and animals again. The rats in the subways don’t really count to me.

 

I went to the house Terra grew up in and the new owners left a lot of the original place in tact. Running parallel to the house is a creek where I proved to be typical city boy. I couldn’t handle the excess amount of bugs in the air, on the ground and on me. I hope that I provided a little comic relief for her because it was a very emotional experience. Her father passed away a few years ago and coming back here brought back many memories. As I comfort her I start to think of the day when…. I can’t even write about the subject it’s too hard to even think about.

 

So back to the crazy duck, Terra’s friend Deb lives in the town of Mt. Joy. Around her house are a golf course and a cute little pond down the hill from the house. Terra says ‘Let’s go check out the pond.’ ‘Sure why not,’ I reply. We get halfway done the hill and we see some creature moving through the water heading for the shore. “What’s that thing?” I ask. As it got closer Terra says, “It looks like a duck with a funny haircut”. We chuckled at the ugly duckling and noticed it was making a B line toward us. “Uh…I think it coming right at you.” I said. Terra starts backpedaling up the hill. I remain still. Mr. Ducky is looking like an airplane on a runway gaining speed. He (don’t argue with me on this I don’t know the gender of it so let just say it was a male) speeds past me and the chase is on. God, this had to be one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life! Terra is now in an all out sprint and Mr. Ducky is probably feeling like a lion at this point. She makes it to the driveway,the duck stops and let’s out a final quack before taking a break to clean himself.

 

We tested out the theory a couple times to see if he would only chase her and every time he did except when she hid behind me and Mr. Ducky bit my foot a couple times for aiding her. It didn’t hurt and no animals were injured during filming. Funny stuff.

 

...to everyone out there. Eat lots of bbq and have some potato salad if you must. Let's also remember the troops who are dying in Iraq & Afghanistan not for our freedom, but for the profits of a few elite politicians and business men. So ask yourself, what area(s) in your life are yet to be liberated?

 

Are you at some job that is killing you just to be there? Maybe you're in a relationship that isn't what you want, but you've been together so long you forgot what it's like to be alone? Is there some deep secret you've been holding back and you need to let the world know about it? What about that dream you had growing up that you try not to think about because its not practical? Release the Dragon! Walk away! Shout it out! I double dare you....... 

 

Who turned up the heat while I was away? I got back to New York today and it was scorching! Kids were out in the street playing in water spewing from the fire hydrant, folks were playing dominos and music was blaring. I love my block!

 

Right now, I'm sitting here feeling so blessed and thankful to be here and for the many people that reach out to me regularly. I can't explain how I've been able to embark on this journey virtually stress free, but I can guess that my protective sphere of friends and family shields me.

 

If I could figure out a way to have this shield with air conditioning, then I'd be 'Rollin like BART' (Bay Area Rapid Transit) anybody out there remember that phrase? If so you probably were living in the Bay Area during the 80's and chances are you owned a pair of acid washed jeans. Um, ok I'm going to drink some water now before I start revealing embarrassing secrets.  

 

My angel Terra flew back to California today. Get it 'California Angels'? Yeah probably more cheese then necessary but California has good cheese too. What was I saying? Oh yeah, I had a wonderful time with Miss Terra and it was fun to see rural PA, so now I'm down to just having Martin here.

 

We went to a bar called Guernica and they were spinning......do I have to tell you? Yes it was Drum & Bass. God there were some weird people there (besides us)! One guy was rocking a green sports coat, a blue Yankee hat and just stared at himself in a mirror most of the night. Three days ago during my drive to PA, I tuned into Coast to Coast and the topic was ghosts and reincarnation. I started thinking, was this a spirit trying on a new body and checking out how it looked in the mirror? I laughed at the ridiculous thought until I looked in his hand and saw a Ouija board!!! No lie.

 

I left before having to perform an exorcism. Whose knows though, maybe that would have been the start of a new career for me.