"Golden hills, now veiled in gray,
Summer leaves have blown away"
 

Just a little sunshine 

I was inspired by a friend to post some pictures here - on my run down 395 to Bishop today I decided to whip out my camera at some scenic points - though pictures don't capture how incredible these places are during the beginning of fall - started off here looking down toward Topaz Lake along the California-Nevada border 

Roll on forever... 

Walker River rest stop - this is an amazing place - I like to crash here for a nap on the way in and out -  

Mountains along Walker River canyon 

Some beautiful fall trees near Devil's Gate Summit just north of Bridgeport 

The wider view - see details in next pic.. 

Looking down Conway Summit vista point south toward Mono Lake - that is 395 down there 

Looking down from southbound 395 vista point towards Owens Valley and Bishop - don't go up this way in a beat up yellow station wagon.... 

Heading back home - pulled over for this view of salty Mono Lake from 395 

Last shot of the day - the island of Mono Lake 

Another drive by the bay at Tahoe 

I wrote a letter... 

mailed it in the air 

Smile on your brother 

Holding hands 

If I ever lose my faith in you

There'd be nothing left for me to do

I have said all this before. If you read any of this regularly - feel free to skip over this because I am just going to repeat my same message all over again. Every time I come up on an anniversary - (8 years of marriage as of October 2, 2006) - get ready for me to say it again - maybe with a different twist - but the same message anyways. It is one of my favorite subjects. I would like to claim I have an answer to it - but I really don't have an answer to anything. Everything is subject to change. It is all just a dream anyways, and the dream is constantly changing until ultimately it will shift into a somewhat permanent dream - when life - as we know it anyways - comes to an end. Maybe it is even a permanent dream even now. But with that aside - I arrive at the subject of the day - my marriage. If I was really in sync with the cheese I would be posting this on October 2 - but that is a Monday - not generally a good day for being here - and as I go with the thoughts as they arrive - and here they are now - then this is my anniversary post about 8 days early - kind of in sync with the 8 years we have been married together.

I would say this - on paper - we should not even be together. Yet - here we are. Seeing that we did come together - and did even feel some passion when it happened - I would then say - we should have lasted only a few months. Too many differences - culturally - personality - habits - she noticed that immediately and was trying to find a way out before she had even fully walked in through the door. When she went back to Chicago (I think that is some small town hick place in the midwest with horrible weather if I recall) for the first of many times - her dying father - the same father who has been dying for the last 10 years and probably will outlive everyone while doing it - earnestly told her she should come back home for good, that what she had with me would not last, that she belonged with her family - and that I was just using her (which of course - is true - I was and I still am). And even if she is kicking herself for the decision today, she did come back.

In sports when a team defies the odds and makes it to the championship and wins it all - like the Anaheim Angles a few years ago - they are called a team of destiny. I think it applies to relationships too - when a relationship defies all odds and stays together - it almost takes on a life of its own outside of the two people inside of it. And after so many times when it looks like the end is sight, that it looks like the last stop has finally arrived - and then - that passes - and the inertia starts to take its course - than - in some unexplainable way - it almost seems meant to be - and that is when I start to believe that we really do belong together - as long as we are alive anyways (feel free to send your anonymous cyanide donations my way - I won't tell anyone).

I sensed something different from the beginning - why I was talking marriage long before I should have been talking about it. And when she blurted out that she wanted a little girl - the first time she had even said that to anyone - maybe she sensed it too. Even now - the challenges continue. When I fell in love via the internet - it revealed a side of me that was not completely satisfied in the marriage - kind of that cheesy romantic side that all of us may have to some degree - that side of us that may mean we are not meant to be monogamous - that side of us that looks to fall in love, feel passion, feel wanted - feel that rush of excitement that is captured in all of the cheesy love songs that are so popular today. It is there in me - and this marriage cannot provide the answer to that for either one of us. I do think that I can find the answer to that within my own soul, and that another person cannot do that for me. Still - given the chance to experience constant romance, sex, and passion - that would be a tough temptation to pass upon.

When Victoria found out about her ex-boyfriend "Ben-hameen" how you say it anyways - I did something everyone in the macho latin cultures would rather die than do - I actually gave her his phone number with an internet search. She met up with him and spent time with him for two weeks in Chicago. Many in her family concluded that I did not love her. One of her brothers even went so far as to say I had no balls (just did a quick check and in fact I do see that they are resting comfortably on the chair below me as I write this). In that culture, the woman you marry is your property - you rule her with an iron thumb - only beating her when absolutely necessary - but she is never to be trusted, she is expected to worship and adore you and only you at all times, and she is to be your slave who is to cater to your every whim. With all due respect - it sounds just a shade primitive to me, and even though I went around the house singing "Macho Man" while I pushed the vacuum around the floor yesterday, it is not exactly who I am or ever will be for that matter.

She was sort of "dating" him out there - and I knew about it - and even knowing she had some resurrected feelings for him - I was not too concerned about it. I kind of knew one of two things would happen - either she would get back with him - and that if that was what she wanted - than great - she would be in her beloved hick town - Chi something or another (what kind of lame name is that for a town anyways) and that if she was happy - I would be happy. And yet - maybe on a deeper level - I have developed an almost semi-arrogant faith in our relationship - knowing that we do have something unexplainable going here that has gathered momentum and strength over the years - even the strength to overcome the dreaded in-law conflict - and hell if we could get through THAT - we could get through anything - (that which does not kill you can only make you stronger). So maybe I just knew that whatever fleeting feelings she would have were going to pass and it was better for her to have the option of testing them, rather than living in a fascist marriage setting where the only way those inevitable feelings would surface would be through a secret or hidden affair, the same one our San Diego ex-neighbor experiences on a regular base, including one with a man who added a convenient piece of penis-jewelry for her added pleasure experience.

I think what keeps us together is that we can be open with our feelings, that we don't need to hide them from each other, and we let the other go where they need to go to find out for themselves what they really want. If I had not been able to come to her with my feelings about the woman I fell for, who knows what would have happened there. But what may be considered to be extremely lenient and lacking testicles to some, to others - would just be a testament to believing in something that much that you let the other person find out for themselves how special the relationship is rather than ramming it down that person's throat. I personally believe that freedom is the best rule, and that when you give the other person the space to go through these things, that approach works better than any. Of course that is just the way I see it, but it is no coincidence to me that I do see it that way and Victoria has stayed with me 10 years, while everyone else she was with previously who lived by that macho third world approach - she did not stay with.

Now - after 8 years married and over 10 years together - I do see this as a relationship of destiny. Never mind the "if" statements - "if" Sara was not here, I would be out of here - we have both said that - but you can also apply "if" to "if my aunt had a package he would be my uncle" - a favorite Jim Rome radio quote - or if the earth had no oxygen we would be dead, if the sun was not yellow it would be purple - in other words - "if" does not nearly as much as "is" does, although of you an ex-president, "is" requires special definition. And the is of it all - is that it is still going strong, we are still here - warts and all - the relationship still lives on despite the odds. It is not because we stare longingly into each other's eyes and live out a cheesy happily ever after romance song fairy tale - or have constant non stop sex all day long. Personally - I experience moments of passion and romance here from time to time. My ex-girlfriend has made it clear she would gladly take me back - 12 years later after playing the field and finding out I was the best one out there after all - after she took it upon herself to leave and find that out - and maybe I would have lots of sex with her if I was with her now - but really - although sex is important - I think it needs to exist in a relationship, but constant sex with a person you don't get along with cannot save it either. Just writing to my ex and talking to her made it clear why I did not last with her to begin with. After that wonderful orgasm arrives - you have to still put up with that person. We have just enough contact here to get by - to meet the minimum weekly couple requirements as recommended by the FDA - but more than incredible sex or passion, there is a foundation under our feet - one that has been building slowly and surely, but despite some massive earthquakes, it still appears to firmly in place.

I am not going to tell you Victoria is the most incredible person in the world. Like me she is a human being - and we are both a pain in the ass (oh yeah - I forgot - I am the only one - she is a real picnic to get along with) and we both have our hangups, neurotic behaviors, and our down sides. Yet - we both have a deep spiritual side to us - one that is not found in traditional religious books and organizations necessarily, but it is there nevertheless. We can laugh at the same thing, talk about the same thing and know where the other is coming from - we have developed that sixth sense about the other that comes after years of knowing someone. So - I can never guarantee anything - I cannot even know that I will be alive tomorrow - but I do know - that as long as we are both living and nobody takes me up on that cyanide request, I like our chances of staying together. I have developed a faith in our relationship - that has been there from the beginning, but standing the test of time, conflicts, and outside temptation - we are still here - and in my mind that speaks volumes.

Some folks trust to reason
Others trust to might
I don't trust to nothing
But I know it come out right

My friend, my friend he's got a knife

A statement from his former life

Lately I don't remeber dreams but the one from last night was in such vivid detail that I can even think of it now. It was one of those somebody is trying to kill me dreams. It started out on a golf course where this guy - for fun - was aiming a gun and shooting at me - but if I remember - at that point anyways - he was trying to scare me more out of a power trip than to really kill me. He kind of looked like the actor John Goodman - the way he might have looked in some of his more sinister rolls anyways. A lot of people in the dream looked like sinister oversized puppets. Somehow or another I was his captive and I was later at a barbeque and Victoria was there. I somehow became aware that all of the meat on the grill was dead cats and dogs and I was trying to explain it to Victoria - what was in fact on the grill. To escape him, I actually ran to the police twice in the dream. The first time it was late at night and some receptionist type of fat lady answered the door to talk to me and before I could explain someone was trying to kill me, the John Goodman type guy either attacked her or killed her - somehow I remember her mouth being taped. A second time I was trying to escape him, I was walking down Dayton Valley Road heading into town, hiding from him since I knew he was after me. I remember thinking I could end up in California if I walked on the path, but I eventually made it to the police station - this time during the day and there were several male police officers there. I decsribed to one of them that I had just come from Dayton Valley Country Club (the golf course) and the officer immediately concluded that the subject was named "Gregory Browne" spelled with an e - I remember that. They knew who he was, but seemed to go about their business unconcerned and I knew I was still in trouble. Then Victoria was there at the station and I asked her about the guy after me, and she said she never remembered seeing him, but possibly he was in a dream, though she did not know if it was her dream or mine. Then all of a sudden he was there - in front of me - I had nowhere to run and all of the officrs in the station had gone away. He had a razor blade type knife and he was smiling because he knew he had me and I could not get away. I finally said to him something like - go ahead and kill me - I don't care because I am going to live on and haunt you anyways, I cannot really die. I knew I would still live on in spirit form. At that point the officers showed up to fire some kind of taser gun at him, but since he moved it ended up hitting me - although at that point I was seeing myself in another body. The taser gun blow caused me - or now another person - to throw up this type of sticky white spider web material. I think they captured him at that point - but the dream ended.

In the middle of the dream I observed a puppet like made up fat lady waking up in her bed - shocked to find out she was submerged in water, but she was able to rise to the surface of the room about 10 feet up and then breathe there.

Loves that birthday cake 

Nice photography from Viola - this is a family site, so I won't show the other pictures she took of us 

Look at those sisters go 

Sara and Sammy 

Kicking away... 

We started the day on a guided tour at Rancho San Rafael Park, and ended up at Pagan Pride Day playing drums at Bartley Ranch - all in Reno - pictures here and below: 

The gals having fun 

Three ducks