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.

Across the Middle

The mayor of Payne City was the last person to cut my hair, and if I didn't think he might actually be mad at me, I'd go there right now for a trim. His name is Richard Mullis, a former Bibb County Sheriff. He is, as best I can tell when he's holding scissors to my head, a great guy. The mayor of Macon has a mouthpiece named Andrew, and he's the one that told me that Mayor Mullis is a barber. That's half the reason why the mayor of Payne City cut my hair. (The reason I think he's mad at me is that I promised to attend a Payne City Council meeting, then forgot, and someone told me that Mayor Mullis told them that he is mad at me. He could be joking.) If you don't know, Payne City is a speck of land inside Macon's city limits... "A town inside a city."

A few weeks ago, Ballentine Books sent me an advance copy of Man of the House, the recently released sequel to Ad Hudler's Househusband. If you don't know, Ad wrote a comic novel based on his time in Macon and called it Southern Living. Well, long story short, I'm a fan of Ad Hulder the author, Ad Hulder the person, and Ad Hudler the blog, and between those two things, I lucked out with an advanced reader.

Both books--Man of the House and Househusband--are about a cool, finicky, opinionated caregiver named Linc Menner. That is to say, both are largely autobiographical as Ad Hudler is a cool, finicky, opinionated caregiver. It took longer for me to get into Househusband, but I fell hard and fast for Man of the House.

In the book, Linc's daughter has grown to the point that she's no longer so dependent on him, and his wife is busier than she's ever been before. He's alone, bored and without purpose. Through a series of events than I shan't spoil, Linc finds himself trying to find out where his manliness went. (Before becoming a full-time househusband, he ran a successful landscape architecture company.) He hangs out with the guys (unnecessarily) remodeling his house, taking up hobbies like carpentry and freaking out about hurricanes.

I have no kids, and I am not married, but I totally get Linc's urge to seek out what he might consider his long, lost manhood. (That line is probably going to end up in my trash-talking Fantasy Football league message board.) When you're remotely smart and self-aware, you tend to think you eschew the male stereotype, which guys WANT to fulfill--beer, boobs, football and profanity. In his fascination with what "being male" is, he stumbles on to some of the nuances of the stereotype, things that might actually be admirable.

Like silence. He goes to a barber (a-ha, you see where I was going now, don't you?) to infiltrate the fraternity of stoical men.

And like utilitarian practicality. He goes back to wearing "tighty-whities" because it just feels better. Well, I have to because it does feel better, especially in these humid summers.

There's more, of course. That's what books do: more. And I'm going into all this because I hungout with Ad Hudler this weekend because he agreed to be a panelist at the first ever Crossroads Writers' Conference, here in Macon, which I helped organize.

Back to the feeling slightly smart and self-aware... I'm pretty damn sure I've cringed every single time someone has called me a writer. I grew up in Macon, in Shurlington, near the Jones County line. My dad has worked in either a factory, a yard or a house under construction his entire life. I played baseball, mostly on a sandlot with some great folks, most of whom came from similar stock as I and then went on to do what their daddies did. For a while, I did too.

Calling me a writer makes me cringe because it's like saying I've outgrown my raising--AND wanting me to take pride in that. It's also like giving me credit I don't feel I deserve, despite the fact I have technically been writing for publication for the last three years or so. Though I'm more comfortable admitting I write for The 11th Hour, I'd really rather you just didn't know about it. I'd rather you think I'm in construction or something equally valuable, not something like writing.

Yes, putting on a writers' conference, being an editor and writing tons of content, I still have this weird feeling that writing isn't valuable.

But then Ad Hudler reminded me why I do what I do (I can't help myself) and why I wanted to put a writers' conference together (to be around other people who can't help themselves). After his speech last Thursday in Warner Robins, I not only regained some confidence about this one thing that I do that I love more than anything else (even karaoke and smoking), but I understood what the trick is.

Being a writer is like being an alcoholic. You have to admit to this thing before you can get help for it. I'm sure there are plenty of alcoholics who wonder if they're one, just like there are writers who wonder if they're one, but they don't get better until they decide to embrace the damn thing. Once they do, there's a community ready and willing to embrace them.

And that's what I got out of the Crossroads Writers' Conference. Sure, I picked up some handy tips, and I made some new friends. But embracing (or getting really, really damn close to embracing) this thing is the most meaningful. I may wait tables, but I'm a writer. I may hang trim, but I'm a writer. It is what I am. Ad said you have to create the space to write and demand to be left alone when you're there, and I'm going to.

It's better not to fight it.