Years ago I used to have a long and successful route of reenactments where I entertained every weekend from labor day till thanksgiving. It extended over several states and locales, and I met and was seen by thousands and thousands of people. I even regularly traveled into Ontario. I even had stalkers!

In all my days I could never imagine such a thing ever happening to me. At home in Indiana, I couldn’t draw the attention of anyone. All my associates had some sort of substance abuse issue, even the best and kindest ones. None of them successful even on their own terms. To get a date from any one I knew or was likely to meet was an extremely low order of probability, and the pool from which I had to choose was murky at best.

Yet out on the road, I was a minor star of sideshow! Of daring do, courageous and desirable. There were women who would endanger their marriages and kid’s future for a chance to commit sins of the flesh with me! It was quite a boost to my fractured and fragile male ego.

To tell you the truth it didn’t make sense… it was too incongruent. Which was the aberrant reality? Of course it was me! The fans in other states admired my character on the bally stage. No one at home ever saw that.

Home. I would go home to Indiana after two and a half months of highly profitable roaming. Home to a family broken with age and alcoholism, busted dreams and seething viciousness. A home which I could not and never fit in with.

I would stay there from thanksgiving until after Christmas when I would travel to south Florida for my winter shows, and patent snow birding in the Airstream to avoid winter. All Alone.

Those six weeks at home waiting, booking shows, packing for a three or four month hop to south Florida, were done all holding my breath. Steeped in claustrophobic repressed republican paranoia and despotic drunkenness, while I planned and effected my escape from winter, and assholes. All done with no help aid, nor love. Some empty sex was added to the mix of my existence, as spicy and toxic as MSG. And with all the side effects one might expect.

Each year I would get through it. Somehow… I would watch the light change, the days shorten, and the temperature drop. My migratory instinct tug and tug damn hard.

Then I would get on the road and travel south, and savor the trip as long as I could. I would travel old US 41 from Indiana to Fort Myers, and reflect while being a complete Airstream Hobo on my way to my first winter show.

And yet in Florida, my loneliness was utter and complete. The sunshine state’s promises of fun and excess, provided neither. I never found love in Florida. I never found riches, was able to live to anything like excess, or descend into any sort of carnal or licentious indulgences despite the hype of the place.

All I really enjoyed was the weather and the sunlight. Mild spring light times of weather and real sunshine! All tossing my circadian rhythms towards romance and love, all cheated and frustrated. Florida would break my heart each year, and yet I knew it was the best I could do.

But out there on the other side the of the Alleghenies I did find my true love and now we are setting Florida aside for this season. The golden light of the South which beckons me to migrate comes with the most amazing partner. And I need not seek a place to find answers, or love or even excess. I have found them already with the Most Dangerous Beauty Alive™

And so it is that while on this first leg of our full timing life that the starter on our 9-year-old GMC Yukon (220K miles!) finally completed its slow death. It died on a street in Madison, WI. And I made the repairs myself, on a windy day with temps hovering around 37˚F.

Changing a starter begins with really knowing the problem is with the starter. And empirically I knew that my fate was to dive underneath the truck, reach in the dark and, while laying on my back, unbolt and unwire the wretch, drop it down and replace it with a new one. I had no trouble light, no creeper to lie on — just my cursed knowledge and experience.

I had changed starters before; heavy, black, oily, greasy, schmutz-laden pendulous hunks, murderous to hold in place while impossibly hidden bolts were miserably sought out — while my arms tired and went numb, while rust and crap fell into my eyes.

I had bought a replacement starter a few days before as insurance. When you buy a starter you have the choice of “new” or “rebuilt”. In the universe of starters usually the only real difference is the price. Yet “rebuilt” at $234 was a shock. And then there is the Core Charge. It seems your dead starter can be brought in for a deposit like an old pop bottle. Since mine had not died yet, I paid the additional $30 core charge up front with a promise for a refund when the deceased was brought in.

The starter finally did completely croak two days later. No amount of coaxing, threats, prayers, entreaties or bargains with the Mad Gods, would resurrect it. My fate to face my curse, layered with guilt, cloaked in obligation and fear of failure, was sealed. My time had come.

Now the difference of full timing was washing over me, showing how profoundly one’s perspective changes. Not so long ago another layer of anxiety would be present. Shame of not considering to simply call someone to tow the beast away and fix it all for me, pay for it with a plastic card, and be on my way. I could certainly do it. Yet it seemed out of the question. I knew it wasn’t going to be that hard. I needed to do it myself for myself. A test of skill? of stamina? I deny it all — I’d detest revealing myself as engaging in anything so cliché. No! I am simply so cheap! This flaw I can face and wrap around and warm myself with, like a scratchy horse blanket.

And so it went well. The new starter has a rich clean high-pitched winding sound as sweet as an underage girl’s first kiss. The core charge is retrieved, my paranoia ameliorated, while secure with a truck that starts. It’s time to go to get on the road once more.

Also I must note that I am full-timing with the Most Dangerous Beauty Alive™ which is a delight and a wonder. The difference between full-timing with one’s lover, and full-timing with one’s loneliness cannot be appreciated until experienced, and I don’t suggest the latter. We have been traveling together now for 5 years on short jaunts of a week or two, and up to a few months at a time. We know how to do this thing and are better rehearsed than many new full timers.

The initial paranoia phase has passed, as it is now with surety that all our crap is stowed and we are not over weight according to the Flying J scales and my calculations. What a relief.

As performers we carry props and costumes for several different versions of our shows. In addition to fire and swords, we carry props for Fortune Telling: Tea Leaf Reading, Tarot, Crystal Gazing. My rare library of Phrenological literature from the 18th and 19th Century is on board along with radio and video production gear and three computers. We have made good money with all of this stuff.

Of course there’s all the regular full timing stuff. To Wit: lawn chairs, a carpet for under the awning, hoses and water filters, extension cords, truck and trailer care items, a spare tire, bottles, jacks and three heavy tool boxes loaded to fix anything.

It all fit and fit rather well. There is even room for Brundlefly the cat.

We are now Executive Hobos. Let our mood reflect the freedom we have sought out. Let us not carry along with us the biliousness of our urban dysphoria. Let it remain in the rear view mirror, and fade away along with abandoned zip codes, and time zones.

In the absence of posting I have been nonetheless very busily involved with the website and those of a few others. Lots of work to be done in the weeks and months ahead, as I’ve taken on the redesign and organization of www.showhistory.com to make it a more easily navigable and usable interface for contributors and researchers alike. I hope to have the initial CSS work done by mid-month. The new look will be unveiled when the site owner approves. Here, I’ve added links under Kindred Spirits and Trailer Travel and we’re discussing updates to our Recommendations listing since nearly all the current ones are linked in the second sidebar.

There have been ups and downs aplenty on this tour, some quite elating and others quite upsetting, but we remain steadfast traveling carny folk in the midst of it all, doing the very best that we can wherever we are, whatever we happen to be doing.

I find that I miss school, more specifically the structuring of my time that school provided. I’m determined to find a way to get back for the MFA in Arts Management sooner rather than later. I’ve proven I can work well remotely and I have instructors who will no doubt back me up on that if need be. The Masters Program is all about finding and coordinating funding for the arts, the very thing I want to know about in order to feel my educational toolkit is complete. I’m not the only degreed performer out here doing this sort of work. In point of fact another performer I know completed a very similar Individualized Studies degree program to my own and took her Masters in Folklore the same day I took my BIS in Multimedia Storytelling. We worked the same Renaissance Faire for two years running without knowing who each other were. The world is small in very cool ways a lot of the time.

I’ll be experimenting with a work schedule for myself that includes not more than two hours at a time sitting at the computer or the sewing machine and mandatory moving about in between those periods. Yoga, long walks on the beach, anything to get me up and romping that gets my blood moving about will do nicely. This should net me about 6 hours worth of work between the Mac and the Singer on any given day when implemented.

Got into the gym for a great workout and got my house in order for West Coast company arriving this evening. Off to fetch them from the airport presently. Then perhaps it’ll be time for a spot of dinner.

It has been a wonderful few days back home thus far.

Thanksgiving was warm and yummy and full of fellowship with friends and family. Alex made a mock apple pie and Celt’s daughter made her signature hummus with her signature kitchen tools. It was a wonderful day and evening. Very mellow, very relaxed, stress-free the way all holidays have the potential to be, really.

The days following the holiday found us catching us with others. Friends, co-workers, performers, all wonderful people we hadn’t seen in quite some time. We made it to the Palace and also to Clyde’s where we met with Shortstaxx and Bambi Galore to first talk business and then eat oysters. Ladies, it is always a pleasure. More oysters and chattiness down the line? I hope so!

Brian, the bartender that evening, would visit my bar at the Palace on his off nights and I began going to Clyde’s to see him on mine earlier in the year. It was great to catch up. He joined us again two nights hence, along with James and Sprocket, to try out Dr. Granville Moore’s, the new Belgian place on H Street. Turns out the chef is a great friend of his and he called ahead for us all. We not only had a delicious meal spread out for us but some brilliantly prepared snails which were served to us with the chef’s compliments.

I managed to run into James Marlowe in our travels and I stopped in to meet with him this past Friday at the tattoo shop he runs with Anna. For those interested I will be tattooing at Marlowe Ink on December 5th, 6th, 7th, 12th and 13th from 1pm until 9pm each day. Looks as though I may have found a safe tattooing haven for the times I’m off the road and back at home. Thank you James and Anna for being awesome in all the ways that you are and for giving me the opportunity to return to other sorts of work that I love.

Met a friend’s outrageously beautiful baby daughter in the process of meeting with him about UNIX applications and other geeky things, as well as picking up a significant pile of some of the several hundred pounds of chocolate his wife quite cleverly bargained for from the local Lindt outlet earlier in the season.

Yes. You read that right. Several HUNDRED pounds. I took home maybe five of those pounds and am sharing the wealth accordingly.

There are press kits and marketing materials spread out all over the upstairs right now. Celt is being very patient, navigating through it all on crutches (thank you!). I completed enough training in iMovie and iDVD to produce a trailer of our show and it is being sent out to potential clients even as I type. I am glad of other things to occupy my time because I must tell you that iDVD is FUN. I could lose days, weeks to this insidiously charming little program.

Speaking of occupying time, it is back to work with me. Kits need to be assembled, sewing needs to be done and websites need attention. SERIOUS attention.

Of course somewhere amid all of this I will find time to do some baking … It is the holiday season after all.

Cheers!