a dude surfing a wave of lava

A month ago, maybe six weeks ago, I was eating at New China Buffet 8, reading The Watchmen, and contemplating the end of days. Whether it was the doomsday comic or the hodgepodge full belly, I don't know, but I wasn't feeling real swell about my place on the planet. When the check arrived, I snapped open the fortune cookie with one hand and ripped out its lovely guts, a ribbon of white paper sunshine that read: "You do not have to worry about your future."

Instantly, I felt better. Whoever put that fortune in my cookie had done me a service that day. It was the best part of the Sermon on the Mount, without the preachiness, in a simple sentence. Gloom be gone. I was cured. I slipped it in my wallet, where it remains today, and stopped worrying about my future because I don't have to. The fortune cookie made it so.

In the time since, I've been busier than I've probably ever been with the only possible exception being when I had three jobs: waiting tables, working as a youth minister and running an after-school program when my shift at the daycare was done. I was younger then and was ate up with free time because all my friends—including my girlfriend—had moved away, and I hadn't yet moved in with The Establishment, a Scotch-swilling former Marine who joined the National Guard for a reason to keep guns in the house.

Yeah, so for the past month or so, I've been crazy busy. With extraordinary help from Macon State faculty (like, so much help that the word help doesn't seem sufficient for describing what they did)—Drs. Braun, Whiddon and Young-Zook—Macon got its first ever writers' conference. Two weeks leading up to that, I spent three nights at the Georgia State Fair emceeing various events, including the kazoo world record attempt (about which I've already blogged). And of course, we've put out two issues of The 11th Hour, meaning two deadlines which I met with sporadic success. All the while, I had that reminder in my wallet that I am not required--by grand decree of the stars over China--to worry about my future. That was pretty handy.

Having emerged from this period, which really stretches out before Bragg Jam in terms of increased civic activity, without burning out, I now look at things very differently. The same energy I expended at the bar with the intention of forgetting why I was going to the bar is finding another path. Like water does. It has to go somewhere, and this is where it's heading. Somewhere.

This city. It still amazes me. The other day, I saw a guy driving a big honkin' tractor down Vineville in the afternoon. He was wearing purple nurse scrubs.

Tuesday night, I was at City Council again because knowing things has become important to me and there are several things that go uncaptured by the daily or the news stations (or by The 11th Hour). Like the woman who stood up before council to ask that the city government stop harassing and oppressing her. She labeled herself a freedom fighter and a slave. Everything else she said bubbled and spun in waves of non-sequiters and tangents. It was funny for about twenty seconds, and then it was just sad. Earlier in the day, I was reading about the argument between members of the Bibb County Commission on how to help Riveredge Mental Health Facility, who lost $1.5 million from their budget because the State of Georgia is stupid and cruel.

And the more I think about the way the Bibb County government runs, the angrier I get about them. I'm meeting with them all this week whether they're running for office or not. I'm asking them all the same questions to be fair. What I want to know, though, is what good are they for the city of Macon, which contains two-thirds of Bibb County's population. They only seem concerned with the people of unincorporated Bibb, and for too long, the citizens of Macon have been fine with that. Well, it pisses me off.

Then I got a call from a friend who'll remain nameless because I didn't ask if I could make this tidbit public. She went to the Joshua Cup--you know, the Christian coffeeshop that refuses to let our paper in their store because they're so much more like God than we are—and she asked if she could hang posters for "All That Jazz", an event that raises funds for educational programs at The Tubman Museum. The owner balked, saying he'd have to think about it because they have to be careful about what they allow in there and he'd seen that movie about Bob Fosse and he wasn't sure if he approved of that.

Yesterday, I stood in the back of the Library Ballroom, a completely restored and absolutely gorgeous historic building that once housed Macon's first public library. At the front, NewTown Macon was giving its annual update on its progress, talking about the millions they've invested in downtown and how it has helped bring millions and millions more in development projects. I left, with my boss Brad, before they handed out their "Partners In Progress" awards because we were pressed firmly against deadline with pieces to our puzzle still missing.

Turns out that Bragg Jam won the "Creating a Sense of Place" award and the praise was directed at Brad. The superintendent of the Bibb County School System, Sharon Patterson, was there to present the award and she said—we watched the video online—"Come on up, Brad, and let us talk about you some." The room was silent; hardly anyone had seen him leave. The camera panned wide, and heads turned right and left, trying to catch a glimpse of this elusive do-gooder to no avail.

Today, I went to pick up the papers for my route, which is significantly smaller than its ever been. No one was at the printer's place. While I waited for someone to show, I drove over to Macon State to deliver the cooler and sandwich board sign that we borrowed for the conference. The Dean of Student Life and the Director of Student Life, from whom we borrowed this, were walking away as I was walking in. I thanked them for their kindness, and the Dean told me that she saw a student this week who said that, because of our lil' conference, she'd decided to become an English major. That was pretty sweet.

After I grabbed my stack of papers, I hit the road. Briefly. Then I went to New China Buffet 8 to eat. It was exactly 4pm and the dude wanted to charge me $3.50 more to eat there whereas a minute earlier he wouldn't have. Fuck them. I went to Golden Corral instead and read from Mark Leyner's "Et Tu, Babe" until it hurt to eat any more banana pudding.

I don't know if I had a point.