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The thing jumped down from coincidence and jerked a rope around my neck: “Uukkghhh…” I think I said, or something like it. Remembering the lovely green life o’ me pasts (leaving out poison ivy, multiflora, deer flies, and sweat), I cursed the day I ever set out for the moon! An old tale with me, I’d do it wherever I was. But that’s not what happened again.

I drove out to Taos Valley Overlook for another hike. The air was clean and cold with a good stiff breeze under a strong sun. I walked three-and-a-half miles as fast as I ever have, breathing great gouts of that incredible stuff: the AIR! It alters your consciousness, I swear it does, and carries mysterious energy. By the time I got back to the parking lot, I was sweaty and wrung out but still shooting sparks. On the way back to town, I saw Taos in the sun at the base of the mountains and thought, well damn, it is beautiful. (Now, how did they do that?) And then I realized it wasn’t Taos per se but the setting, of course: the unfathomable space, the valley, the mountains, blah blah. That which goes BOOM in you somewhere and changes your settings. In the distance, Taos itself looked like someone nuked a great big ole shantytown, and all the shacks and lean-tos and dead cars and wealthy old white people rained down from the mushroom cloud as it spread, all of a tumble with rusty sheet metal, realtors, chunks of adobe, 10,000 horses and too many dogs.

Other than that, though, I liked it.

As I drove into Llano Quemado through a blue-and-tan world with that air and the sun burning down, I went into a hungry New Mexico zone where you see more than what’s at your feet… The rubble of Taos was there but not there, blending into the face of the Earth, and I rolled down the window some more. I was doing exactly what I’d set out to do, and the worst thing would be it could end.

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Maybe I should hit her up for a loan. If ever a cat needed a fast ride on a loud motorcycle, I’m looking at it right now. Meanwhile, I’m still bored. A box elder bug just committed suicide by flying into cold dishwater in the sink, though, so things are looking up.

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Oh, I’m weary, all right. (Winter, viruses and lung rot, rusty razor blades of doom, etc.) But I think I have this thing figured out.

I’ve been nothing but miserable when it comes to conventional expectations, and as smart as I am, I’ve dispensed some God-awful advice. You might even say I blew an obvious conventional future all to hell, or at least made it a lot more difficult, with the choices I’ve made along the way. But it’s not just one choice, or two or three. It’s all of them… This remarkable consistency deserves greater scrutiny, which I just gave it. I conclude I am a force of Nature! Some might even say a bare-assed genius of a lesser sort, but why stop there.

The only thing any of us ever does “wrong” is get in our own way. Accordingly, the next time I wake up at 5:00 a.m. and can’t decide whether to piss or shoot myself, I may just go to the bathroom. After all, I’m obviously marked for a highly unconventional future, what there is left of it.

This ain’t about no Oprah hipster goober crap. I may be tired, but the fix is in. You can’t compare yourself to others. You just can’t.

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You’re looking at the lower slopes of Taos Mountain, sacred to the people of Taos Pueblo. Sometimes a photo is all you need, and I can just shut up.

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