April Showers (of death)

Well good morning, everyone, and happy 4/20! To the uninformed, 4/20 began when a group of high schoolers met to smoke weed after class by a statue at 4:20pm. It was code for the activity so no one else would know what they were talking about. Eventually, one of the boys worked for a recording studio and the code was revealed to Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. Thanks to Jerry, tales of 4/20 spread around the world. Now, I’m quoting this from a reading I did a long time ago, so a few of the specifics may be a little off. I’m in the ballpark, though. It has nothing to do with Hitler, police codes, or Willie Nelson. Read, fuckers. Google is free and in your pocket.

It doesn’t matter. I have an MRI this afternoon and can’t imagine enduring that while high AF! Welcome to the life of a middle-aged writer. Medical procedures and marijuana don’t mix. At least they shouldn’t. I’m scared enough of hospitals. People die there.

On an unrelated note, do any other authors get emails from Amazon asking them to check out this C. Derick Miller bastard? Heaven knows I get enough about other writers. Just curious…

I noticed yet again that me and my fellow North Texans are under another severe precipitating death watch aka what we used to call a simple rainstorm. I’ve believed for decades now that mother nature is female, but I have been proven wrong. Mother nature is a flaming drag queen named Peaches who must make the most dramatic entrance possible. Under normal circumstances and situations, I wouldn’t hate this. I love it when people are so over the top with confidence that it bleeds out onto the surrounding souls. Not with my weather, though. That shit is frightening.

Every drop of rain has been upgraded to a thunderstorm and every gust of wind transformed into something the ghost of Bill Paxton (RIP, local celebrity) would chase in a red Dodge. I’ll never understand why he chose Helen Hunt over Jami Gertz. Did he not see The Lost Boys or Crossroads? She was every Gen X’ers high school wet dream!!! Old silly Bill. I demand a recount!

Some blame climate change, and some say weather intensifies and relaxes in one-hundred-year cycles. I’m not sure who to believe because I’m not a meteorologist. That seems like a super boring job which would not bring all the boys – or girls in my case – to the yard. It is NOT the “milkshake” of careers, in other words. Isn’t that why we strive for greatness in the first place? To impress the opposite (or same if you’re into that) sex? I never cared about the diploma. I just wanted the cheerleader who came with it. Actually, I married a band girl. I recommend it. If her mouth is classically trained on a musical instrument, imagine what she can do with your tiny contribution to the pro-life rhetoric?

(I’m sorry, honey. I know you’re reading this. It’s a joke. I bet you sounded great on that football field. I totally could’ve heard you above the hundred or so other instruments drowning out the sounds of caveman grunts and nacho farts coming from the stands. I love you! You have a pretty mouth, and I love to see it smile. “Deliverance” would be jealous.)

I’m not sure who’s right. What I do know is that every time a butterfly flaps his or her wings in Central Park, we get tornadoes in Dallas. Chaos theory. Not that I know anything about it, really. I just know that Jeff Goldblum’s character in the Jurassic Park franchise lived by this belief. Timeless film. He gets the gold star.

Wow. I’ve really been going off on a lot of pop culture tangents this morning. Am I sure I’m not high?

I think the climate is shifting rather than changing. Weather patterns and norms have moved from one section of the country to another. The extremely high winds from the mountainous regions of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana have come to the Midwest where there are few mountains, wreaking havoc regularly. On the other hand, the desert southwest is a flourishing field of green currently because of all the rain they’ve received this year. It’s unrecognizable by dogmatic media standards. Also, the weather patterns of a decade ago have shifted to the east coast, giving places like New Jersey something to fear other than the mafia. On the flipside of that coin, perhaps Peaches is sending cyclones to Jersey in hopes she can catch Donald Trump at the boardwalk. It’s the same reason she sends them to Oklahoma all the time. She hopes she can suck up Toby Keith. He’s quite the slippery bastard, always one step ahead of the greatest blow of his life. Like I said, I’m not a scientist, so I can’t say for sure. This is just my Gonzo theory.

Besides, I usually only think and talk about deep subjects like weather and Jami Gertz when I’m high.

Well, shit. You caught me.

Happy 4/20, everyone!!!

Peace.