"The man in the black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.."

I went to Maine. Maine is almost like another country; really it is folks. A slice of land crooked in between the rest of America and Canada, Maine is indeed unique. Broken English is spoken, shooting menacing squirrels with a BB gun while sipping your morning coffee is optional (nobody in my family, humane society), while at the same time recent memory suggests that a hermit up the road used to keep a deer as a pet in his cabin. The traditional clock seems non-existent as days pass by without stress or strain. Our claim to fame is lobster, an enormous statue of Paul Bunyan, and the greatest fiction writer of modern times. Damn I love my home state.

Maine was fabulous. I read three books in four days, almost got sun poisoning for the second time this summer (who the hell said you were allowed to get sun poisoning in Maine?), I ate lobster, drank club soda by day and Pabst by night, and found out my youngest brother can now do more pushups than me. Father time is sniffing away at me. Or maybe that is me losing interest in the weight room. I also was brought back to my days of purity by my youngest cousin, who is more intellectual and cuter than I will ever be, at the age of seven.

On the way home from Maine I returned to an empty parking lot at Siena College and a automobile full of my possessions. Siena had kicked me out for good. My job started the next morning and I was to be thrown into the big leagues without a place to call home.

Full time employment does not wait for you to find a place called home. Full time employment does not wait for the two 1990's TVs to stop falling over at every stop sign or sharp turn in your car. I stock and sell rugs for a living people. I move 12 by 15 rugs from the loading dock to the floor for half the day and do my damn best to sell them to uncertain customers the rest of the day. What the customers don't know is I know even less than they do about rugs. Touche. Anyways work isn't so bad. One thing I've gathered from a full week on the job is that times are tough and I am lucky to have a job. Things are rough all over, and if moving rugs for half the day and pretending I am an expert on them for the other half is what I have to do to make some coin, I'll do it with half a smile on my face.

A whole week has passed since I was dropped off at Siena and I am still sleeping around Albany. Friends (maybe just acquaintances) take me in on a night by night basis. Over the past three weeks I have inhabited one bed, one futon, and illegally slept at Siena College on two separate occasions. My car remains packed to capacity with personal belongings. I have made enough room to see out of every mirror in the car, making it barely street legal. One week from today I will no longer be overstaying my welcome or committing misdemeanor crimes according to Siena. Either my own, or my roommates credit was approved by either the government, the FBI, or Area 151, and the cheapest two man apartment in the Capital Region is now ours.

I am catching up on some brief R and R these next two days. I will bet small amounts of money on horses tomorrow and pray that the nice car my mother has lent me will be fixed by a nice man named Bob. Bob gave it a sticker today that passed inspection, and then Cory stalled out on the busiest street in America. Cory's phone was almost dead and he was almost stranded in the most abandoned parking lot in America for the duration of the evening. For once in my life I praised AT@T for its durability, and cursed KFC for the worst "wait for a tow truck meal of my life". Bob seems like an honest mechanic and I have faith in him to fix the car that has most of my belongings in it.

Take care people, this has been a strange, yet educational and fulfilling summer. I am indeed almost grown up. I will only be bothering the few followers of this blog just once more this summer. My next blog will be my last for a while.

Check it out: The title of this blog has little to do with my life in transition and more with a novel that I read in Maine. Check out Stephen King's novel, The Gunslinger. A story of a Gunslinger (the last of his kind) and his unknown need to find The Dark Tower. And just a reminding memo to Stephen King's neighbors, "Don't worry ma'am, we ain't tourists, we're fans."