What I have learned, so far.

Manny months have passed since I have made a post, many things have happened, My computer has gone Kaput, this is a post I have been working on most of that time. I post it Now, there are still more things that I have learned that have not been written about here, they will become another post.

I would like to apologize to peoples whom I have not E-mailed back. Life is busy here and internet is slow. There has be talk of upgrading the internet connection to something that I can work with, but this is not to happen ‘till there is a new computer built, aiming at February to build it.

Rest assured that Andy is well, and Happy. You will all be e-mailed soon. Promise.

I would like to give a special Shout out! to my home boy David, out on the Right hand coast. Whaz up, Bo’oy! I’ll check back with you soon, promise.

Also, a shout in the wind of non-sexual hedro man love to MoHeynOw. Where ever he may be.

(Look at me, being all Ghetto and shit)

Now, the short list of things that I have learned, since I left the Great White North, five months ago.

1. You never really acclimate to the heat; you only learn to stop whining about it, and eventually it no longer surprises you to walk out side barefooted at eleven o’clock at night and burn the bottoms of your feet on the still blistering soil.
Now I have had the locals ague with me on this point, but I stand firm on it. No one “Adjusts” to the heat and discomfort of living in the desert, people who have been here for twenty years will still pass out from the heat on a day when they have forgotten to take the necessary precautions. Their bodies not having adjusted, only the mind set that the sun can and will kill you if given the chance. The are the same human creature that they were when they left the great white north, only they are not surprised anymore by the heat.

2. Cowboys are REAL. This came as a bit of a shock to me to see actual cowboys, ridding the dusty trail on a trusty mount, sidearm in holster, and beans and bourbon in their bellies.

The real surprise came when I learned (After attempting to speak with one) what a cowboy really is………………I warn you, this is the sad part………………..Cowboys are hillbillies on horseback, rednecks with revolvers or
if you’d like a more complete answer cowboys are; ….monosyllabicalcoholicknuckledraggingniggerhatinghomophobicpotsmokinflagwavingoodol’boys;
who WOULD have voted for Bush, BUT “votins fer city folk”, and “votin happens during huntin’ season” just like in every other part of the country.

This particular “strain” of redneck just happens to be the subject of movies where the onscreen counterparts have more redeeming qualities, then they did in Deliverance.

And this was sad to me.

3. Bill and Ted hung out at a Circle K, right? Guess what…Circle K, it sucks. The ONLY place to go for any thing you might want from a gas station/convenience mart, is QT! (Quick Trip). The bestsest place on earth to get snackies and beverages and flirted at by pretty girls, all at the same time.

For Christ’s sake, they have people who wash the gas pumps regularly, you could eat off the floor in the bathroom, the beverage selection is complete and overwhelming and the slushies beat 7-11 hands down. I have taken a particular shine to a Jalapeno and cheeses sausage confection that they only serve in the morning.

I can only hope that when Bill and Ted were here, they predated the QT, if not than I have to admit I will have lost a smidge of respect for the great ones. (but just a smidge, honest)

(Strange things would have better been afoot at the QT.)

4. I have no fashion sense to deal with the desert, It’s to hot to dress the ways I know. I have attempted to dress more to fit in, after a particularly fetching (I thought) outfit of wholly new textiles were purchased by me to cover my nakedness, I was told, with a great joyous laugh, by a dwarf, that I “looked like a tourist“, whilst my cousin often maintains, when my attempted assemblage of garments fails to impress. that I’m not sixty yet, and I should dress my age. I have heard this from her on more than occasion, and shall undoubtedly hear it again.

I’m a bit tossed with the not knowing how to dress myself, but I stands firm, I shall die before wearing sandals with socks, and wife beaters with cut off khakis.
5. Wasabi!!! I’ve eaten sushi before, that’s nothing new. I’d had Wasabi on my plate; that’s also nothing new. The pasty green mystery condiment from the orient often comes on plates near many of the foods that make an Andy a happy Andy. Always the waitperson will point and say, “Wasabi,” always followed by an impression of Buster Poindexter going, “Hot! Hot! Hot!”

Knowing how un-well some of the interior parts of the Andy dislike me for causing them to digest Hot and spicy foods, I have avoided Wasabi till now.
Wasabi was tried, Wasabi is Hot, damn Hot, it’s tasty and good, but oh, so hot, And then it’s over. No meandering in my esophagus to cause any lasting pain, no kicking me as it goes down, and no waking me up in the middle of the night with my chest hair smoldering. It’s just tasty then burn and then tasty then gone.

I have been told that it contains horseradish, now I‘m no fraggle, radishes of any type are not often on my shopping list….but I may linger near them on my next shopping trip, to find radishes of the horse variety.

6. The green soft gentle things of the earth can hurt you. I know enough to avoid the OBVIOUSLY staby things, cacti, scorpions, rattlesnakes.

But then I was hurt by touching a Palm tree, and then a fern, yes it was just a fern, with sharp hard bit on the ends of it‘s leaves.

Now palm trees, as I knew them, were slender and had hand hold scallop shapes running up the sides, at least this is how I drew them; having never been corrected by some one more in the know. Palm trees remained mentally for me as safe as my sketch book.

And was I wrong, I was quickly informed that the firm hand holdy scallop shapes I had been drawing were not firm, but fuzzy and home for scorpions. Some palm trees, like the ones in from of Ericka’s home, have been shaved.
Shaved and no longer homes for the OBVIOUSLY stabby things, Scorpions. Safe right?

Well I attempted to climb one, and after being a source of amusements for the scant few locals who were privy to my attempts, I then spent a week picking splinters out of my paws.

I was dive bombed by giant black beetles, sounding every bit like miniature helicopters, looking like June bugs, as big as a rat (well, as big as a burly field mouse anyway), and dressed in black armor. They did not bite or sting, just flung themselves at me all pissy like, and the ones that missed me, they dented the house just a bit, and shook it off to try again.

I have also suffered the indignity of driving along and having the earth it’s self, all dry and dusty as it is here, jump up all angry, as if I had committed some heinous and unspeakable act against it’s aging mother and smack me in the eyes and run down my wind pipe, in an attempt to choke me to death.

7. Being 20 miles closer to the sun makes a difference. Let alone the 3000ish miles I drove to get here, the big stinker is the 20 or so miles I went closer to the sun as I got closer to the bulgy part in the middle of the earth.

The sun (for those of you who don’t know) is quite literally a MILLION TIMES bigger than the earth. From Detroit, it’s nearly 98,000,000 miles from the earth, but now, here in Mesa, It is 98,000.020 miles away.

You’d not think that that would make a difference. But brother, let me tell you.

The Sun, now my next door neighbor (in galactic terms),
And it will cause blisters on exposed skin, who knew.

It was as I was crossing the border from Oklahoma (Oklahoma! Oklahoma! Oklahoma!) into Texas, that it suddenly got brighter, as if God had saw where I was and said, “Oh, he’s gone on into Texas, We’d had better turn up the stage lights.”

It got brighter at that point, and never went back to it’s normal intensity. Once, when trying to identify East, in the early morning, I looked in it’s general direction, and spent the rest of the day with a sharp pain where it (being the sun and all) had poked me in the head. East can stay lost for all I care.

8. I am no Pussy!!

Alpha male is a tortuously stupid game that all males have to play . Left over in our chemical makeup, from a time when I suppose it was a necessary part of survival. Alpha male is a testosterone pissing match, nothing more.

When two men, who have no reason to like each other, and have reasons to dislike each other (often, but not always over a female) are forced into a confined space with no distractions to divert there attention from the other male, A sparring match of some sort is inevitable.

Alpha male rarely results in a physical confrontation, the end result it most often no more than a bruised ego and an irritated female human. Which make the drive to do this to impress a woman all the more befuddling, even to us.

I would like to point out, that (and this often infuriates women to hear) the subtly of this game is lost more often than not on women. It’s often played in front of them when they have no clue. And I know, women reading this are saying “just because I don’t say anything about it, doesn’t mean I don’t know it’s going on”

WRONG: this contest happens always, passing men in the grocery store are sizing each other up, when one man says hello to another man for the first time, information is being exchanged; things like, “I want to have sex with your girlfriend/wife/daughter” “I could beat you at arm wrestling” or “your car sucks.”

Men will deny that this much communication is there when talking about it to or in front of women. And in truth, not all men are privy to this much detail about the other men they meet, but the story of everyman’s intentions towards the world are there, pheromones floating in the wind, I suppose.

Now, about me and the not being a pussy story………

So I was sitting on the front porch of Ericka’s home; next to her and enjoying an Ice coffee, when Gary some one who aspires (but fails) to be a cowboy, (see above) and is the father if her children, came over to pick up the twins one day.

This was not the first time I had met him, but the previous meeting, we had no direct contact.

He asked Ericka to give to him some paperwork he needed to enroll the twins at the school near his home, she got up and went inside to find, said papers.

This left him and I together in a confined space, with no distractions.

Now, I don’t like him, he is (I believe) aware of at least some of the myriad of reasons that I feel this way.

And he, I am sure, does not like me, as he’s not to sure of what to make of me. Do to my being important to Ericka, and this being something that his damaged and redneck brain can not fathom.

Now I HATE this game, much like fighting it’s self, I’ll do it when I have to, gladly, but I will be quick about it and it will be over soon. Not the type to beat my chest, rip my shirt and play pushy with some one, as is so often the case; when boys start ’a scrappin’.

Now after a few moments of the “who’s going to break the silence first?”
I sat quietly, drinking my coffee. He shifted back and forth on his heels.

Then, he spoke:

Dickhead: “so how do you like Arizona so far Andy.”

Myself : “I like it well enough”

Dickhead: “I bet it’s a lot hotter than what your used to?”

My brain at this point said, “dam, that a stupid thing to say, he knows where Michigan is, he knows where Arizona is.”
My mouth however said : “ oh, I’ll be fine.”

This is where he lost.

Dickhead: “I know you will, your no pussy. Your tough. Your no pussy I can see that. I can tell just by looking at you that your no pussy.”

Myself : “Thanks Gary”

Dickhead: ‘I can tell, just by looking at you, your tough. You’ll do fine, your no pussy”

The conversation went on like this over and over, as I was told that I was no pussy and that I was a real tough guy, repeatedly. Over and over.

Now, it’s important to note, Gary is a self proclaimed Bad Ass. He likes to talk a lot about how tough he is. He also, due to drugs of many types and being run over by a bus (at least I think it was a bus), has now from time to time, a very limited vocabulary, I’ve seen him on more than one occasion get stuck in a verbal loop.

And this is after leaving the drugs behind.

I was later informed by Ericka that to be told this by him meant that I had made quite an impression and that coming from him this was a rather lofty complement.

I told her I took it as such. I could see the sincerity in him as he told me that I was “no pussy“.

9. “When the rain comes. They’ll run and Hide their heads”

So, here I am, in the desert. The Hot and dry American southwest. Today I bore witness to my first thunderstorm in the valley.

The Sky is BIG here, I suppose it has to be to make way for the sun, which is also bigger here. So when Lightning flashes, you can see it. Every little bit of it, from where it was spat out by the clouds that birthed it, to where it sets someone’s home on fire.

The entire sky, split asunder by a veiny white flash.

I’m at a loss to accurately describe HOW the sky is bigger, and the intensity of seeing this new bigger sky ripped across by lighting. So do your best to imagine it, and put “seeing the sky over the desert” on your list of things to do.

Needless to say, I was driving, with the top down when the lighting began.
THEN….after the lighting ….we all know what happens… Thunder.

But do, I am assuming, to the lack of anything soft (trees, soil, etc..) to absorb the sound, And with only stony hard mountains all the way around, to create an echo.

Thunder is also a bigger thing, louder, bassier, and with a reverberation that last longer.

Now, what did I learn today in the thunderstorm?

People who have only ever driven in the Desert, react with a fear to driving in rain as if the rain where made of toddlers and kittens.

Rain starts, I put up my top. The traffic STOPS. Dead. No movement.

People then began moving in a panic to reach the nearest Exit first.

I have been told “repeatedly” that, because it rains so very little here in the desert, that it never ever rains enough to wash the oil off of the street completely, and WHEN it rains, the roads Apparently, become slick as if there were A sheet of oil EVERYWHERE.

I was even told this by a cop, as he was aware that I was new here and thought that this piece of information would keep me safe in the DEADLY DEADLY RAIN,

were I a less clever man, he would have made me fearful of the rain,

thanks be to god and my parents for instilling me with common sense.

10: Arizona is not on the earth, this is indubious another planet.
Everything is different here, the place is different, gravity is a bit lighter, the air is different the water is different, the critters are different.

What is the same? Everything that would be the same if people had colonized Mars.

People are no different, other than the unusual ways that they think about the planet, fear of rain and fire, and copious amounts of beverages are consumed by everyone always.

The other things that are the same? Everything that would’ve came with us, the same things that came with us from Europe; Fleas, cats, food (with the exception of an overabundance of citrus), mice, rats, televisions and computers, (yes, they came with us on the May Flower, look it up.)

It is my fervent belief that when I chose to sleep on my journey here, (In a rest stop two miles short of Okalahoma (Okalahoma!! Okalahoma!! Okalahoma!!), That I must have been taken aboard a secret government owned flying saucer and transported all the way to a similar rest stop, on Mars.

Silly? Perhaps, but how else am I to explain that Arizona is on a different planet, the stars in the night sky are permanently shifted.

11. Mountains are Big.

Holly shit Big, Wedge Antilles (Look at the size of that thing) big. I’d thought I’d seen Mountains before, I’d been East to see the mountains there, but looking back, “That’s not a mountains, THIS is a mountain“. Big big big.

Think of the biggest thing you’ve every stood next to, now make it bigger, then double it. Your still not there.

I’ve seen sky scrapers, not so big. The Rocky Mountains, (Passed threw on my way here) Holy shit big.

Like driving along and a fleet of death stars lands in the road way. Like the clouds in the sky decided to sit and rest on the horizon and didn’t float back up by the time I made it there.

Standing at the foot of a mountain so big that the clouds next to it obscure the top. that’s bizarre. I kept wanting to stop the other cars on the road and point out the mountains to the drivers, they didn’t seem to notice. How could being that close to something as big as the moon go un-noticed? You got me hanging.

I am told that living this close to them, they become wall paper. But this I am still not believing.

The Mountains that surround the Valley of the Sun, not Quite as BIG as the Rockies, but I still get a strange sensation, that it’s unreal (the Mountains), just driving to the Grocery store.

So, Not wall paper just yet.

13. Mexican food taste like it’s from another country.

Michigan Has its share of Mexicans, However they are white washed versions of the people who come from Mexico. Even places Like “Nachos “ and “Mama Sanchez’s”, often propertied by “Mexican” friends of mine to offer “Authentic Mexican Food”.

BULLSHIT CHET, BULLSHIT.

The “Mexican” food available in Michigan, is home made versions of the Stuff you get from Taco Bell. Nothing like what is really made and served to REAL Mexicans.

The Names of the foods are the same, and most of it comes wrapped in a tortilla, folded one way is a taco and another way it’s a burrito. But that is where any resemblance ends.

If given my choices now, and you ask me to dinner, I would rather eat REAL Mexican food than Chinese any day, and I’m not even kidding.

And take the word of the almighty Andy on this one, What you THINK you know about REAL Mexican food, you don’t, unless you’ve had the privilege of eating at a “Fillibirtios” (odd ball chain of family run Mexican drive threw joints here and in California) or I suppose Eating in Mexico its self. What your thinking you had that was Authentic, was not.

SOOOO tasty good.

“It’s Like a meat party in my mouth!! And Everyone’s invited” - Xander Harris

14. Kroger and Kessle have a third brother.

Fry’s is what happens to “Kroger” when you move it to the south west, My Kroger plus card still works there, but it does not keep a running total of how much I have saved. That irks me a bit, I was fast approaching a thousand dollars saved, having had my Kroger plus card for many years now.

But now, at Fry’s, all my receipts will tell me is how much I have saved TODAY. Bummer.

But I still get Kroger brands there, not to mention “FMV” Fry’s packages on Kroger brands. And I’m still loyal to Kroger. Nifty huh.


Now, something I rarely have to do, being mostly right, most of the time.
I amend something I had written as truth. I have made a mistake. In topic 1, I explained that I did not believe that the Heat could be adjusted to physiologically, only psychologically, It was near sixty degrees on Christmas, I was cold, I wore my jacket and Gloves. No shit, I ask you again, How weird is THAT.