I'm All Sixes and Sevens and Nines

I didn't leave the house yesterday until I met up with the gymroids at five.  Then I didn't get to bed 'til after one, which was weird because I got home at nine-thirty.  I'd been cooking pictures most of the day and was still jacked after going out.  I watched a little t.v. and then sat and thought for a long time.  That's the thing that separates me from the herd.  Thinking.  I find that most people don't like to be alone with their thoughts.  They'd rather do "something" rather than be alone and think.  I'm not like that at all.  I have to have time to be alone and sit and think.  A little group stuff goes a long way with me.  I am shy, so if I don't perform a persona, I am quiet and existing on the perimeter of things.  But when I'm performative, I often go "too far."  I can outperform the cowboys when things get weird.  I've always had a motto that is a little different than H.S. Thompson's--"When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro."  And so it seemed last night.  The shock jock kept looking around the room over his hunched shoulders--"You said that a little loud."  

"You can call me gay, just don't call me a bottom."

That's how I make up with that crowd.  That's something they can latch onto.  But seriously, I can't believe they still include me in their outings.  

We go again on Friday.  

Since I didn't leave the house yesterday, though, I missed an "incident" at the gym.  There is a little guy who wears a pair of gym shorts and some boy boxers over his leggings.  He pushes his hair back with a plastic hair band.  The gymorids have a fit, but I talk to him and he is fine.  That's what I always tell them.  

"He's alright.  He's s nice guy." 

I say that about everyone, though, until they aren't.  I'm sure the fuckers were all making snide comments about the bleached blonde hippie, too.  Can't judge a book by its cover, though, right?  That's what I was taught.  On the other hand, I've learned you pretty much can do that with books.  Publishing is a business and they know what bait attracts which audiences.  But I still maintain the saying with people.  

Now, I'll admit the fellow is a little "persnickety."  

So yesterday, Tennessee was pulling on his sweatshirt when the fellow in the leggings brought the gym manager over and said, "That's my sweatshirt."  By all accounts, Tennessee thought it was a joke.  But it wasn't.  Little Leggings was serious and had brought the gym manager over with him to. . . well, who knows to what.  By all accounts, Tennessee's eyes nutted up a bit.  

"This ain't your sweatshirt.  Why would I take your sweatshirt?  You want one, I'll buy you all sweatshirts."

It turned out that Little Leggings sweatshirt was sitting on top of a piece of exercise equipment he had been using.  

"And the little fucker didn't even say 'sorry.'  He just said 'oh.'"

"God almighty, I wish I had been there.  I would have amped that shit up," I said.  "'Are those my mother's leggings?  She said she was missing some leggings.  Are those them?  You didn't even leave any money on the table, did you?'  Oh, yea, when I walk into the gym, I'm going up to the gym manager pointing to my shirt and say 'I'm wearing this in, OK?'  This is going to go on for awhile."

The fellow who picks up the tab every time was cringing a bit since he sits on the Club Y board of directors.  I looked at him.  

"I'm on Team Tennessee!" 

Loyalties run deep.  

We went to a second bar.  There was an older guy with thinning longish hair wearing a black suit jacket with white piping and a pair of cream colored slacks sitting at a table near ours.  He looked quite like Sam Kinison if he had lived.  I pointed him out.  

"That guy's alright," I said.  "He's got gumption." 

The boys looked around.  

"I know that guy from somewhere," one of the boys said.  Than the shock jock.  

"He's got to be a cool character," I offered.  "I like characters."

"No shit," said the shock jock with mock surprise.  

"Ha." 

So now I was in persona mode.  GiddyUp, cowboy.    

When I got home at 9:30, I was still pretty amped.  I had to think through all the stupid shit I had said.  It's what the old people used to call "acting up."  I think I was acting up.  In school, that used to get you a spanking.  Now, I think, it gets you a time out.  

I needed time out.  

The female wait person at the first place got a kick out of it.  The male wait person at the second didn't so much.  

I think this song wrecked me, though.  When I was helping T build fence, he had some Kenny Chesney satellite radio station playing.  They are from the same town, he says.  He used to date Kenny's sister.  

"I thought you said you listened to jazz and just put this shit on to bug me?"

"Nah, man. . . they play all kinds of music on this station."

They did.  Country, country/folk, country/reggae, and country.  I guess my iPhone was listening in, because when I put my Apple Music station on back at the house, it was playing lots of country music.  The satellite is always watching.  

But this one. . . well, it. caught my ear.  Then something else.  

Honey, got no money
I'm all sixes and sevens and nines

Yea, man. . . ain't it the truth.  'Cause you know. . . 

Say now baby, I'm the rank outsider
You can be my partner in crime

Been listening to the Stones do this song forever, and yea, I always imagined I was "a lone crap shooter."  I've got a romantic imagination, don't you know.  But don't we all when it comes to our own mythology.  And you know what happens if we strip a person of their myth, right? 

You got to roll me and call me the tumbling dice.