The Hazel Project

Here’s one for you traveler’s.

There are certain spots on i40 that capitalize on their location because they know most are en-route to somewhere else. Amarillo, TX; Holbrook & Williams, AZ are 3 such places. The latter 2 are stop overs to the grand canyon. Gas is higher, Hotels like Holiday Inn and Ramada Inn and Travel Lodge still exist.

Herb has learned, not all Holiday Inn’s are the same.

Herb likes Holiday Inn Express because, and he really said this,

“It makes me feel like the rock group KISS in the morning.”

I laughed a long time at this statement.
What Herb really likes is the free breakfast and weather report in the morning.

Well, Holiday Inn’s differ in that they are full service hotels with attached resturaunts.

How it worked on the road:
We would call 1-800-holiday, while on the road, to book something close to where we wanted to stay. We were promised a free breakfast on 2 occasions. When we mentioned the Breakfast to the clerks, they shook their heads in disbelief. Saying, 1-800-holiday is just a reservation service and has nothing to do with the way we operate our hotel.

Apparently 1-800-holiday instead of using a computer, they have an intern who flips a coin to tell whether or not there is a free continental breakfast. Whether it be a holiday inn express or a full service hotel.

So we were denied the free breakfasts. To honor the glitch we were asuaged the first time with a breakfast voucher in Holbrook, AZ. A great breakfast where a short mexican woman stands behind a bank of griddles and takes orders for omlets and pancakes.

The second time, in Williams, AZ, they only offered a 10% discount of a $10/ person buffet. I tried to let the manager know kindly that she should check with 1-800-holiday again to make sure they knew what amenties they did offer, and that it wasn’t free or participatiing in a voucher program. This made her anagrily defensive.

After Herb obtained a business card, for a long letter to be written later, we left for the desert.

What we’ve realized is that 1-800-Holiday is a warm and fuzzy service that makes you feel that your bases are covered. But like canned meat at a wedding reception, there is a new experience to be had, and a surprise at any stop where there is a full service Holiday Inn on i40.

By the way Herb doesn’t take such business practices lightly. Since he’s my father and navigator on this journey, and having good sleep and good hotel vibes are a big deal to both of us; we are now holed up in a Best Western in Orange, CA.

They have a continental breakfast too. Industrial sysco coffee, fruit and near-end-expiration snack cakes from SAM’s Club.

At least they made good on their promise.

We were outside under an umbrella overlooking the parking lot. As we were talking and scalding ourselves on Best Western coffee;

I see in the distance a green circle.

Could it be? A Starbucks!

The first one in 3 days.

Herb politely asked if I was going to finish my liquid bitterness as he was already headed to the garbage can with his.

So we walk over to starbucks, a beautiful day in Southern CA.
We get in a line of 5 pixaleens ordering breakfast dessert, maybe their only meal for the day, but the line went fast.

Two tall colombian brews later, we were ready for our day.

Next I’ll go into excruciating detail about in&out burger.

Thanks for checking in, and leaving comments.

Anyone have a hotel experience on i40 they’d like to comment about, feel free to do so.

Stephen A. Thomas

Today was great. The holiday inns are getting older as we go along.

We wanted to make it to Flagstaff last night but decided to stay about an hour and a half out.

I learned today that Arizona, although in the mountain time zone does not celebrate daylight savings time. I guess they have enough of it. So we gained an hour before reaching the pacific time zone.

When we got to falgstaff, Herb wanted to buy a better map of the grand canyon and as I was filling the car with 2.89/ gal gasoline, Herb went to a nearby safeway. So while Herb has decended upon safeway personel, I walk to the nearby Mcdonalds to use their clean facilities. I’m washing my hands and notice a tormented mango in pool of water on the sink.
a very suntanned man is really working his hair over and is using the mirror as I’m washing my hands. I ask “is that your mango?” and he said “yeah, helps keep the hair healthy, makes it grow faster too.”
I said ” so you just rub that mango on your head?”
and he happily said “yep, you just rub it on your head, and have healthy hair restored.”

As I was leaving I thanked him for the salon type info. and thought, “I bet it makes him smell nice too.”

I think this man was homeless but he didn’t ask for mango money, AND he didn’t hit me in the face.

So right there it was a great day.

I’m going to simmer on the events at the Grand Canyon.

Thanks for checking in,

Stephen A. Thomas

Hello everyone,

I’m very excited today because we intend to arrive at the Grand Canyon about 1pm.

A weird phone thing.

All of a sudden, despite my best attempts to keep my cell phone alive with a new battery and charger, the little sanyo 8200 is on the fritz.

I’ll be talking and then the whole screen blanks out and my drops call.

Then I have to hook the charger to it in order for it to come back on.

This is to let everyone know I’ll probably be getting a new phone and a new service as well, with a different no. sooner than I thought.

I have several of the no.s written down but am missing a few.

I’ll keep you posted on this.

Stephen A. Thomas

Herb and I came to a point where we were able to measure our visibility today driving through NM. 10 miles was the furthest we could see in one stretch.

We spent a lot of time in Alburquerque at the Pueblo Indian Cultural Center. A great place. Convicting though. It told how happy they were before the white man came to show them a better way to God and how to own land. Owning land to Indians was a wrench in their fundamental belief system. They beleived they belonged to the land. Not own it. So they held it in high regard with stewardship towards it.
Then we set up trading posts and missions.

You know the rest.

Our meal highlight was the resturaunt that served authentic Native American food. Two thumbs up for this place of which I forget the name.
Blue corn, cheese enchilladas with verde sauce. And Pisole. A Hominy soup with a red chile sauce. This dish was different but superb.

We left about 6pm. Herb was snapping photos of route66 signs all along the way. I’m going end up with rainman photos from this leg of the trip.

Nothing surreal today. I did see a terydactyl wrapped in christmas lights flapping its wings in front of the petrified forest. What a wacky land.

Thanks for checking in

Stephen A. Thomas

WOW.

I’m in reverant awe of how everybody helped me in leaving town.

I stayed with davak’s family Wednesday night. Went firefly hunting with
their 4 year old.

We mostly caught worms and rollie pollies. Nevertheless we put forth a good effort. Firefly hunting is exponentially more difficult after a few glasses of a nice table red from southern season.

Thursday was intense.

My last day at work.

I was amazed at the kindness and the cards and the cake and the cameras. I’m going to miss these people and this place. This job was a transforming experience for me.

Later I did another reduction at my 5×5 unit and finally delineated what could go and what I’d need to store at Larry and Linda’s.
Larry and I went on a 5k run. We all had a great dinner, even Smokey the dog. We hung out on the porch that we reconstructed together earlier this year, had a great time.

The fireflies were out, doing their thing. I was surprised how high they could fly. They lit up the trees like blinky Christmas lights. It was fantastic. All set to ‘ventura highway’ from America’s greatest hits; Larry’s latest cd.

What’s an ‘alligator lizard’ anyway?

Friday was also a whirlwind. Up early and took more equipment to sell to GC.

So I left town finally at 4:00 with the remainder of my belongins packed in the VW.

It rained.

A torrential downpour.

It took an hour to get to wakeforest from capital boulevard.

I spent Saturday with Dan and Peg and their pups. Dan showed me the work he’s doing this summer, regarding a model of the human ear.
Very cool. Then he showed me an actual temporal bone, with a human ear attached. Looked at it under a microscope. He explained how cochlear implants worked in words of 3 syllables or less so I ‘d understand. We also looked at the inside of an ear under a microscope. Fascinating stuff. Regarding the mechanical to electrical conversion that stimulates the auditory nerve, we decided it was magic.

Try putting that on a test.

Sunday I ended up at wal mart somewhere at 7:30 AM to buy a floormat and cushion for for the drivers seat. It was weird to feel bad for the Chinese person who made my seat cushionn and thankful at the same time. Tried to get a biscuit at the in-house mcdonalds. Fortunately they were closed and I had a lemon poppy seed clif bar instead.

I got hold of a chicken sandwich loaded with MSG somewhere after Knoxville. It was a Subway attached to a gas station. It took 20 minutes of waiting in a line of 1 person. She was ordering Sunday dinner I guess. I was getting frustrated then noticed the 2 girls behind me, must’ve been about 8 or 9, making up a dance routine to the song, “promiscuous”. Those who know me understand how surreal this
moment was. Only in real life, especially in the south it seems, surreality is commonplace.

I ate my MSG laden lunch on the road and 30 minutes later I was taking a nap at an abandoned Exxon station. I pulled the car in and noticed a tall pole that had 10 or so hollow gourds on in it. Bird houses. Only the birds were left at the Exxon.

I began to laugh with irony when the AC unit clicked on cooling the inside of the gas station; I guess to keep the left over cigarettes fresh?

I wonder who’s paying that bill?

Memphis was great. Met up with the parents, Betty and Herb, and we went for dinner at Corky’s bbq.

Betty and I noticed that the large neon sign outside was protected by chicken wire. Then we noticed an armed guard sitting on a truck bed. We chose to hurry up and wait inside at that point.

The food was delicious. Memphis style ribs. 1/2 dry, 1/2 wet. Being from NC I HAD to put the localized Texas Pete on mine. It was very tasty.

Today, After repacking the car, to make space for Herb. I put more stuff -including the green analog machine- in Betty’s car. Herb and I rolled down the windows turned up the sirius jazz satellite radio and lit out for California.

The coolest thing I saw today was a windmill energy farm in OK. There were at leat 50 of these things. They were very big and had a certain grace about them.

The windmills offset the meal in Oklahoma city at a mexican resturaunt.

We asked a Mapco attendant about a good place to eat and she obliged.
As we were leaving she said, “make sure to get the cheese dip!”

So we get there and it’s clean enough with standard mexican resturaunt ‘hominess’. faux stucco, sticky vinyl seats, tall red and white plastic glasses for coke products & modern tex mex music-with Tuba!

Then the waitress brings the standard chips, salsa and a bowl of yellowish goo.

I thought great! Chceese dip! I love this stuff. Well I learned I love queso. This was different.

I’m very tentative eating this, I look over at Herb and he’s eaten 1/2 of his little bowl of the stuff.

The waitress comes back and we order our dinner no.s and Herb says
“Oh by the way we’d like to order some cheese dip.”

the waitresses eyes glaze over-she’s searching; cheese dip? cheese dip?

So herb tries again, “you know the white queso dip”.

Betty and Herb are conosuers of this particular appetizer and Herb was really surprised they had no such thing.

The reason they didn’t have the cheese dip Herb and I were expecting was because we were eating their particular kind.

It was, and I wish I was exaggerating here, a heated can of cream of chicken soup. I kept tasting it to see if there could be any cheese…nope, no cheese. Just salt, and chicken boullion taste.

My review of the rest of the meal.
My portion alone would feed 3 people.

enchillada?
salt

rice?
starchy salt

beans?
with lotsa salt

The salsa, was really good though. It had some real vegetables in it.

Is there something wrong with my taste buds? I love mexican food!

I think I’ve been spoiled by fine cooking from all of you who read these posts.

Particularly the Asherby’s, Larry and Linda, Dan & Peg, The Wrights, the Davaks, Tom & Suzanne.

Thanks for spoiling me with your fine cooking and recipes, now I can differentiate more tastes other than sweet, salt, and starch.

Oh how wish you were all here to have tasted the chicken soup passed off as cheese dip in Oklahoma City.

Thanks for checking in,

Stephen A. Thomas

the short story is that there is very little time to get everything done like I want.

I guess the people who think 20 steps ahead can get things all done in an effeciant manner.

I’m more trial and error and observant of every angle of every possibilty before making a decision. The good part of that is when it’s me making my own decisions it might as well be carved in granite. the downside is that I get frustrated when it’s time to leave and there are loose ends everywhere.

The thing is that this is something I’ve created myself. There really aren’t loose ends.

How unrespectful of me to believe that leaving really good friends and a place I love to tie up in a nice little bow. I’ve had a problem letting go. This takes practice and it’s hard. So many people are helping me in serious ways:

My friend Shoe, is keeping a library of 4 trk cassettes.

The Ashurby’s have let me stay in their guest room 3 nights.

Tom and Suzanne have offered me storage space and a trip to Atlantic beach.

Larry and Linda have offered to mail boxes of things I’ll need later, and rearrange their schedule so I can stay a night with them.

Davak’s Family has also offered a couch and to help sell some stuff on ebay for me. AMAZING!

Natasha has picked up boxes of stuff for drop off at Retails-a thrift store in which proceeds go to help spay and neuter pets.

I have truly amazing friends and I want to thank all of you for your kindness and compassion and support.

Friday at 3:30 I went into shock in a pawn shop selling some gear.
It has occurred to me I don’t need my current studio setup. AND it won’t fit in my car.

Through all this process, I’m begining to understand, things are symbolic of a period of time. Letting go doesn’t diminish me as a person. It is absolutely necessary to let go in order to be clear and completely open for the next experience. Why drag it along for the ride?

Because I’ve become addicted to everything here.
Which is why there is the fear of suffering in leaving my friends and accumulations. And, the fear of leaving a mess behind.

Thanks

Stephen A. Thomas

I’ve uploaded an mp3 to Davak called “Season to Season”. He helped me transfer this from a four track a long time ago.

This gets away from the drone pieces. More traditional meditation music or what they called ’space music’ 20 years ago.

I wrote a little about this piece in the 3rd or 4th post of May

Off to sell more music equipment.

Thanks for Listening.

Stephen A. Thomas

4 boxes,
2 suitcases
1 business case
1 24 channel mixer
1 analog synthesizer in an ATA flight case
1 digital synthesizer with midi
1 bag of cymbals
1 sirius radio

Preparing to move 2500 miles away is interesting.
Interesting in that I’m planning to take what I can fit in my car.
Interesting in that even though I have been practicing ‘life redux’
and live in a 550 sq. ft place, there is still too much.

I began selling stuff to neighbors today at yard sale prices.

Jesus and Julio bought my chest of drawers for $21 plus $5 in quarters.
Julio said he’d give me $4 tomorrow when he gets paid to make it an even $30.
Then he offered me $10 for the office chair I found last week in a garbage bin. I’ll probably just give it to when I move out. He’s been a good neighbor.

My friends Larry and Linda cleared out a spot in their attic for me. I have my own little corner. Thanks Guys!

Also, friends Tom and Suzanne -who have a beautiful 3 week old baby by the way- are letting me store old books and mementos.

SOOOO many mementos.
I’m embarrassed to say, I found a boba fet and r2d2 action figure in an even older box of mementos today.
A pencil box from when I first moved to Mississippi 29 years ago.

Why do I still have this?

Well I know why.

I was storing other things from past as well;
my high school class ring, which, I was to believe, was thrown away with letters from my girfriend at the time.

Jeff & RL to camera 3:

CAMERA 3
(not Janet; the one who put a hex on Milo the cat of which he died 1 week later; the other one.)

An old watch was in there. My wedding ring was in there. Ironically, my wedding ring was lost in a yard a long time ago. The one I wore was from the flea market. I thought it endearing. It had a celtic symbol of fertility on it.

What I’m learning about myself is this.

I’m addicted to memories.

A patchwork that represents different phases of life.
I’m addicted to this and saddened that they physically won’t fit in my car.

I’ve sifted through every sort of media known to man. Tapes, VHS videos, LP’s, CD’s, Books, Magazines, Synthesizer Manuals to try to get the important stuff in one box.

So what’s important?
It’s not that this stuff is really worth anything monetary.

This, exemplified by the $12 I made from video tapes and books I took to the Readers’ Corner yesterday. 2 boxes of stuff. $12 and a shirt, which was good deal because the shirt was the last Medium short sleeve in a matte orange.

My next trick:

Whittle down 2 boxes of cd’s to 1.

THANK GOD FOR STEVE JOBS AND iTUNES.

Now when my redux is through, I will become addicted to the emotional response evoked by using my little laptop and external hard drive that looks like a plastic brick.

Stephen A. Thomas

Last night after my run, I walked around the neighborhood and noticed this nice stone church. I forget the name of it, but it was nestled right off south glenwood, among shade trees and a large plot of manicured grass. It was dusk and had been threatening rain for about an hour.
As I was walking past I looked down in the grass and saw about 5 fireflies light up. I sat down on an available smoking bench and just observed. It was wonderful. They were just doing their thing hovering, glowing, turning on their lights then there would be nothing. It reminded me of a light show to Brian Eno’s first cut from Ambient Music 1.

It was great to sit for 5 minutes and watch all these fireflies come out and play. There were probably 15 or 20 of them. Hard to count really.
It had been a long time since I was present enough to notice and then wonder about such a simple thing. It was nice for a change.

Stephen A. Thomas

I read a quote from shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ today in one of my favorite books called “A Path with Heart”

Be cheerful, sir:
Our revel have ended:
These our actors,
As I foretold you were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rock behind:
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Jack Kornfield writes it like this.

All experience arises in the present, does its dance, and disappears. Experience comes into being only tentatively, for a little time in a certian form; then that form ends and a new form replaces it moment by moment.

My experience in this town is coming to an end. I’ve been here 8 years and 8 days.
The next few posts will be about relocating from the Southeast side of the country to the West.

2546.07 miles according to mapquest.

This past year I was presented an opportunity to go deeply within and wrestle with angels and demons.

I found it important to get to know the interplay of light and shadow in the context of divorce, career ambivalence, and the emotional addiction to self sabbotage.
And the big one, the difficult one, self acceptance.

As my old life “melted into thin air”, I found myself gravitating toward music again, and working with creative people as a career.

Next comes the pragmatic reality check.

At what cost?
At this age?
What if…?

Despite the job instability, lack of corporate benefits and long term security;
I am at the point of self acceptance to leap and have a different experience.

Not better or worse or good or bad.
Just different.

It’s hard for me not to judge it in some way because I definitely want my new experience to be better than going through a divorce; which hurt a lot.
The truth is that an experience is an experience, and exists whether I qualify it or not.

So my experience here in the Triangle fades into another to take place in Southern California. Still all experiences are met with the same thing with every person on both coasts.

A little sleep.

Stephen A. THomas