My neighbor, the funeral home.

Living across the street from a funeral home has its benefits. Neighbors tend to stay quiet in reverence, stray cats steer clear of our block. Maybe cats lose one of their lives if they come too close. But the best is definitely the parking lot. I love the parking lot.

The property adjacent to the funeral home and back a few dozen meters from the street holds the grocery store where I shop. I walk there regularly and the path thereto leads right across the funeral home parking lot. Many times it's barren. But sometimes there's a service inside and the small lot's full of cars. Occasionally I cross the lot when the service inside is finished and there are people outside in the parking lot.

I've seen gatherings for dozens of services. There doesn't seem to be a specific socioeconomic category to which this funeral home caters. All types of people, all types of cars. Some services with Cadillacs, BMWs, etc. Others with rust-buckets littering the parking lot. But all groups share some things. The front doors have a two-fold bottleneck effect- After a service, once people hit the open air, they 1)reform into groups from their single file configuration, and 2)breathe again, like they've been bottled up a long time and now they can move.

In addition to the way in which people exit the building, there's another thing most groups have in common. It's the way they converse in the parking lot. Now obviously I don't walk directly through conversations, but as I traverse the perimeter of the parking lot on my way to the grocery store following a service, I pick up general bits. This is why I like the parking lot. People circle up around car hoods and truck beds. Cigarettes are lit. Laughter, stories, hugs, etc. It doesn't seem to matter what types of cars are in the parking lot. After a service, there's always stories and laughter.

This afternoon my grocery walk coincided with the end of a service. Two mid-20s looking, cigarette-bearing guys stood with an old man. From a distance, they had the look of two estranged brothers standing uncomfortably with their grandfather. Anxious little movements from all of them. The two stood a slight distance from the old man, like they knew he disapproved of their smokes, but they were going to smoke anyway. The old man buried his hands deep in his suit coat pockets.

I walked in to the grocery store and reemerged a few minutes later. The three were still talking. The two still smoking. Hands still buried in coat pockets. As I crossed the street back toward my house, I stole a glance in their direction. They were mid-embrace. All three in one big tangle. I got to the sidewalk on the other side of the street and turned away from them toward my house. From behind me, I wasn't surprised to hear their laughter.

Miss Moneypenny and predictably Bond

The only places I go are the gym and to bed. I'm more habitual than a nun dress. (eh, pretty weak) I'm also cheap-o. Like a nun dress. (stronger) So when I learned there was another gym in town whose monthly costs were 1/3 of my current one's, it was aloha Just Fitness 24, and aloha Gym X.

Of course there's a blonde hot desk worker.

When I walk in for the first time to scope the place, she greets me.

Blonde Hot Desk Worker: "Hi can I give you a tour?"

Me: [witty response]

BHDW: [sheepish grin]

I couldn't have scripted it any better.

But obviously there will be no more chapters in this tale. Examine the evidence: she works at a gym; she works at a gym called "Gym X". To state the stereotype, both thermospherically high indicators of centuries-old craziness. But I'd be lying if I said I hated walking past her desk every trip to the gym. There exists, then, a constant tension. A perpetually fulcruming teeter-totter.

So she's Miss Moneypenny. And in this analogy I'm predictably Bond.

By the way I'd recommend all you Blahglievers get a real life Moneypenny. A little flavor for your vanilla days. Unless you like vanilla, which I do. Then she's vanilla on your chocolate days. Wait, this is turning racial. Flavor on your flavorless days.

Reeves out.

The Reeves Theory of Automotive Twiddledicketry

Working on Saturday is like a used Snickers bar at customer service- No redeeming value.

Working on Saturday when it's absolutely beautiful outside is like grounding yourself for getting grounded- nonsensical voluntary punishment.

So after working all day inside Saturday, I couldn't wait to get out and take a bike ride. I saddled up, donning the requisite black spandex shorts, and, on this occasion, a black shirt. I know you're supposed to wear synthetic, flamboyantly hued biking jerseys, but I prefer the touch, the feel of cotton.

At about 5:30 pm I set out on a new route, west into the small country that is Ft. Hood. The road was smooth and the traffic was sparse. The 80 beautiful degrees in the air made the first 15 miles zoom by.

Rounding a gentle right hander, I received some handlebar feedback like I was riding through tapioca. Then noises like I was filleting a guinea pig.

*If you're my mom, or another potential employer, please skip ahead for the G rated version.

Now we rejoin the action where our hero has bravely endeavored on a multi-mile bike ride without a phone, or a bike maintenance kit, or a pump, or a water bottle, or a brain.

I stopped and quickly saw that my front tire was flatter than last semester's soda. The desolate road loomed behind me. I turned and began the walk. An objective observer would put the turn-around time at 6:15 pm. Plenty of time before sunset, right?

Though the cars (actually trucks, because I'm in Texas and it's illegal to not drive a truck) were few and far between, none of those that did pass stopped to offer help. However, some offered other things. Like honks and yelps and empty water bottles. It was then I developed, then witnessed in action, the Reeves Theory of Automotive Twiddledicketry. First a definition: 'twiddledick' is simply a funnier word for 'tool,' comparable in crudeness to 'butthead.'

As all unified theories, its beauty is in its simplicity. Goes like this:

Your level of twiddledicketry is directly proportional to the number of bolt-on bits your car has.

Take for example the following 3 actual cases.

Case 1: 1987 Chevrolet pickup. Bolt-on Flowmaster catback exhaust system. Relatively simple, minor upgrade. I received a honk. Just barely a twiddledick.

Case 2: 2005 Cadillac Escalade. 24 inch rims. Window tinting. Toupee-ruining stereo. Middle of the road amount of upgrades. I received a window roll down and a yelp. Certified twiddledick.

Case 3: 2002 Dodge Neon. Spray paint black. Bondo-colored full body kit. Uber-vulgar spoiler. Maxwell House-can exhaust pipe. Slammed suspension, riding deep dish Enkeis. He approached from head-on. After burbling past innocently, he could be heard slowing down, turning around then re-approaching. Now advancing from behind me, he floored it, leaving in his wake what can only be called the sound of sin. He disappeared around a corner only to reappear seconds later, now driving toward me again. I knew this nincompoop had a plan, so I held my helmet as a Spartan his shield. Car approaching, window descending, empty plastic water bottle catapulting toward me, shouts of laughter. Twiddledick.

The sun set just after 7 so I enjoyed a starlit walk which totaled 2.5ish hours (about 1.75 in the dark). In my ridiculous black outfit. Even my helmet is black. Luckily I didn't die.

Moral of the story- don't be an unprepared biking idiot, but even more, don't be a twiddledick.

*So I soldiered on and the story ended without incident.

The gym buddy, Czar Peter.

Confession: I'm a card-carrying member of a gym. I pay someone for the privilege of picking up their weighty objects. I realize any argument offered after that sentence can't be based on logic. But whatever, dude.

Two days ago, I was on the last rep of a superset of pushups when I was most surprisingly interrupted by a newcomer. A newbie to this gym.

"Three, four, five," I counted mentally, then stood up to find the love-child of John Madden and Wilford Brimley standing and staring about 8 inches away.

"I'll tell you what you need to do!" he trumpeted, as if training a schnauzer to sit. "Follow me!" He led me across the gym to a machine intended to make guys with no neck have even less of a neck. "You'll want to lean this way and push that way..."

He continued with the instructional monologue, but I was busy picturing a guy with a neck so small that his skull sat right atop his spleen...

Anyway.

"Thanks for the advice, Sir. I may try that next time. Sounds good."

And he walked away. Weird. But whatever. Gym guys are sort of like that.

Chapter 2. Yesterday evening I walk into the gym and I see Mr. Madden-Brimley. And this time he's full-on training a guy I know to be a lone wolf; a guy who talks to and knows nobody here. So I KNOW he doesn't know this new man. And Madden-Brimley is coarsely, I mean coarsely, coaching this dude. "Let's go Michael! Come on Michael! One more!! Two more Michael!! Squeeze it Michael!!"

Whoa.

'Michael' is standing in front of the mirror wall curling a bar on which Madden-Brimley is basically hanging. He's coaching the crap out of this guy he doesn't know.

But that's not even the best part. After 12,000 reps and some CPR, Michael was allowed a break. M-B goes into the diet advice.

"Looks like you might like to have a beer every now and then. That's OK, but if you can cut down on that, that's good. And the carbs. Cut down on the carbs, too. Breads, pastas, grains." I'm quoting as accurately as this keyboard will allow. Promise. There was a gym full of witnesses.

And it hit me- Take away the penchant for hard drinking and the pituitary giantism and Madden-Brimley is Czar Peter. This must be what it's like to just get taken over. A guy arrives on the scene and just runs things. There was a strange power in it all.

Needless to say, I've got to go; I have another training session in 15 minutes with Madden-Brimley.

The sun'll come out

IMG_9206, originally uploaded by LukeReeves.

From the early morning drive from Abilene to Belton yesterday: