A friend of mine sent the above photo to me the other day as he was driving through the old neighborhood in Dallas. The arrow is pointing to my old balcony of my 2/2 apartment near upper Greenville Ave and Walnut Hill. The complex used to be called Sterling Point. This was the first place I lived after leaving UNT in Denton, TX. I got a job at the Dr. Pepper Corporation and the plan was for a friend of mine to move in with me and for us to save our money to move to California. The rent was $650 a month, but my friend never moved in with me and his room stayed completely empty the year and half I lived here. Luckily, I was making enough at Dr. Pepper to afford the entire rent and never really minded that he didn’t move in. He did get a job at the movie theater around the corner from the apartment and stayed with me from time to time, but that was it. The friend who sent me this recent photo lived in the apartment complex next door so it was good to have a friend within walking distance. I have lots of stories from this time in my life.

I remember being really proud of this apartment and that I could afford to live here and hold down a steady job making good money. I also had a cat named Ash while I lived here. Honestly, I had a great future with Dr Pepper, but I eventually felt a bit suffocated and stunted by the corporate atmosphere. I saved up a few thousand dollars and bought a ticket to Paris, France and ended up bouncing around Europe for about 8 months. I stand behind that decision, but I often wonder what would have happened if I’d simply stayed with Dr. Pepper. One of the reasons that I decided to leave was that Dr. Pepper was moving it’s head office to Plano, TX and my apartment complex was raising the rent to $750. This apartment was literally 2 blocks away from Dr. Pepper at the time and them moving to Plano would have made it a half hour drive, at least. I was driving an old Hyundai Excel that was on it’s last legs. I knew that if I wanted to keep my job I’d have to invest in a new car. There was no way that car would have delivered me back and forth to work in Plano. I guess it just all made sense.

I moved out on a cold November day a month before my 21st birthday. I think being able to make it my own at the age of 19 gave me the confidence to start exploring more. I decided that this life thing may not be so damn hard after all. I gave my cat to my friend in the apartment complex next door and I abandoned my Hyundai at a gas station on Walnut Hill. I left the keys in the ignition and walked off. This photo is the first of I’ve seen of that apartment since I left that day, 17 years ago.

There used to be a snake that lived behind this large stone. A stone that someone, long before me, put at the edge of the house. It’s too heavy to lift out of the dirt so I just left it. The snake would pop out and I would shoot at it. I probably shot at it 3 or 4 times and tried countless other times, waiting there with a .22 full of snake shot, but I never got it. I used to see its snake tracks to and fro in the sand. Little side swirls that gave proof of it travels.

Not anymore. Its been months. I haven’t seen the snake in months. I haven’t seen its tracks in months.

I guess it must have moved on. Probably realizing that certain spot wasn’t the best spot to live after all.

I guess that’s what happened to that part of me.

About two weeks ago I started working on a knife with a handle made of reconstituted stone. You probably don’t know what reconstituted stone is all about, but I’m going to give you a quick lesson on it. It’s basically ground up stone mixed with cement, resin, epoxy and various color pigments. The end result is a fucking beautiful thing. It dances and changes colors in the sunlight. The stuff is relatively new to man and there’s not a lot of information on it unless you look into the counter top manufacturers who started using it a few years before knife makers got their hands on it.

Anyhow, I built a man a big  14 inch knife out of some of the shit and broke out into a serious allergic reaction. It took me awhile to trace it back and I thought it was from some Australian Iron Wood I was working with, but… Basically, it ate all the skin off my arms, stomach, feet and after 13 days of that shit got into my face and puffed my face up so bad I had to go to the doctor. The doctor said, “I don’t know how you’ve been tolerating it this long, but here’s some steroids.” So he gave me some steroids and said he’d like me to make him a knife. Said he had a custom kitchen knife made when he was young and wanted another. Paid for my fucking doctor visit.

So here’s the deal. This shit literally ate the top layer skin off my fingers, wrists arms, up to my elbow, then created a scab hole in my belly button and all around my stomach, ate the skin off my dick and then fucked up my arm pits so bad I can’t wear deodorant and then ate the skin off my ankles, feet and between my toes. I was totally fine with all of this until one day I woke up and my wife said, “Travis, you’re face is all swollen up. You look terrible. I’m going to call the doctor.” So she did and I went.

I started taking this medicine and it dried up my face so bad I can hardly see. I’m taking 4 huge pills of steroids every day to get over this terrible infection. My eyes are so sensitive that if a ceiling fan is on it hurts because the wind is chapping my face more and more.

Most people would cry and whine and lay in bed. Fuck that. I’ve literally had some fucking leper shit, skin peeling off me for almost two weeks and am up working even now. Godamn midnight on Valentine’s Day.

It feels like I have terrible sunburn on my face and ants are stinging me on that sunburn and there’s a bright light in my face constantly. What the fuck are you looking at? I’m a godamn leper with the skin peeling off my face everywhere and I can’t breathe right at all because I been making knives.

There’s some godamn poor kids out there that ain’t ever heard the sweet sound of a dollar hitting the window of an ice cream truck ordering up a spider man bubble gum with gummy bear center and you’re wanting to complain about some obama taking away your assault weapons to kill the rich honkeys. Fuck all you honkeys. I can’t even breath right because I been drinking crown royal and smoking marlboro golds and working outside 14 hours a day out back near my kale garden, where the koi vanish and the weeping willow weep tears of joy and the pecan trees feed dog sized squirrels  when I can.

I don’t mean to get mean, but everything changes when your skin starts to fall off your entire body. I gotta lotta rage built up in me in right now because of all the pain I’ve been tolerating. I’m looking at this screen right now and it’s literally blurry with cayenne pepper waterfalls on my godamn face. Fire ants been stinging my skin for 2 godamn weeks and you don’t hear me complaining about it until I need something to write about. I grilled chicken last night half blind in the dark with a lantern motherfucker.

I wake up around 6:30 in the morning and start boiling red potatoes and a few eggs. Sometimes I put 2 slices of Sun-Maid Raisin Bread into the toaster oven or just cook a bunch of “Day Bacon”.

Day bacon is when you cook an entire pack of bacon and use it for every meal of the day or maybe just walk in the kitchen now and again and snack on some bacon or give a nibble to the dog.

I can’t believe you never heard of “day bacon”.

Anyhow, I put another 3 tablespoons into yesterday’s coffee filter and brew it. I just keep adding to it until its about to overflow or mold grows.

I go out to the garage and start grinding. Grinding on knives with the radio blaring and my dog right there just watching for squirrels.

I turn up the radio because it’s on 93.7 Austin Rock and that ZZ Top song is on where they say they’re “just looking for some touch”.

I know what “touch” is. I used to do “touch”.

The sun rises and I hear all the finches chipping and doing whatever in the trees. Sometimes they tell me their feeder is out of food so I dump another mason jar of food in.

My family wakes up so I turn on the TV to see what the weather is going to be like.

If it’s rain then I get the barrels ready.

If it’s over 70 then I don’t wear my boots.

If it’s over 70 then I get the lemonade-tea ready. The AP’s, the Argyle Peaknuckles, the Alfred Poontangs, the Augustus Pearlinsons, the Abigale Passons, the Aston Peacemakers, the Arnie Peadmonts, the fucking juice.

Now I have to take care of the baby so I start singing or making faces. My wife always dresses my baby in full clothing from head to toe. I always take all my baby’s clothes off. It’s too much of a hassle with all that shit on. He doesn’t need any thing on except a diaper.

The song goes,

Itsy bitsy spider
eaten by a dragon
out came the honkeys
to work a 40 hour week
crappie fish and flounder
Tribe Called Quest
auto body repair shop
snapping turtle high school
how i wonder what you are
hahahahahahaha
.

And that seems to work.

Then I take a Benadryl for my terrible hive condition.

I use lots of weird materials and chemicals out in the shop so it probably came from that. Maybe from a weird brussel sprout recipe I had at a fancy restaurant recently.

Anyhow, I stay busy you know.

Looking at stuff online. IMing some friends. Checking out my profile. Getting some traffic in my social media and doing some SEO and dropping tweet bombs.

Then it gets dark real early and my baby gets cranky.

I check eBay and update my bid on a Depression Era Emerald Green Glass Cut Butter Dish. I’m winning at this very moment with a $1.27 bid.

I go up in the loft and check my mouse traps. I’ve had mouse traps up there, set up for 9 months now but haven’t caught a mouse. The trap springs once every 3 months but I’ve yet to win. I keep trying and rub some Cortazone 10 on my hives and put in a good tape.

Then I take some deer meat out of the freezer and thaw it out.

Yesterday I took a bunch of deer meat up to the Police Station. I took my baby with me. Those pigs sure were happy to see my baby and all that deer meat. Those godamn cops hanging out at the Farmer’s Market all the time with their fat fingers like Jimmy Dean Pre-Cooked Maple Flavor Sausages sitting up in the Sunset Valley trailer.

When it gets late and I’m out in my shop I start the sharpening process, which takes a certain mood and a certain groove and I go and grab a real cold potato from the fridge.

My family is long asleep as it’s probably around midnite or 2am. I don’t need as much sleep as them.

I break out my iPad and continue reading the 4000 page book I’ve been reading forever and a day. The lonesome dove story. Or I just read a How To book or Texas Monthly.

Then I go to sleep and wake up around 3AM.

Sometimes I get up. Sometimes I don’t.

When I do. I go out to the garage and check on the epoxy.