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Sunday was a day of sheer bliss.\u00a0 I was back in Ehrenberg. I felt like I just got home from a trip and although the trip was fun, it was nice to be home again. I visited with Bonnie briefly after I arrived back at my usual campsite, and I made lunch. My biggest dilemma was deciding what to eat, as I was fully stocked up on groceries and had lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. The sun was shining, it was in the upper 70\u2019s, and no wind.\u00a0 After I ate, I sat outside and listened to a podcast. Cosmo joined me and while I was listening, he was watching. What, I\u2019m not exactly sure, but he likes sitting and watching what\u2019s going on around us.\u00a0 I think he was as content as I was.<\/strong><\/p>\n I thought back on the previous week.\u00a0 I really enjoyed my new friends that I met in Quartzsite, but also realized that there was some stress involved as well.\u00a0 I take after my mom; she was a people pleaser. She lived to feed people. You couldn\u2019t come to visit without her constantly offering to get you another cup of coffee or make you a sandwich.\u00a0 Or maybe you wanted an omelet?\u00a0 Could she get you a brownie?\u00a0 Or a coke?\u00a0 You may as well just give in because she is not going to sit down and relax until you eat. And even then, the calm would be short-lived because as soon as you finish whatever food you accepted (maybe even before you finish) she was going to get up, and try to get you to eat something more.\u00a0 I either learned that from her, or maybe I inherited that gene.\u00a0 I found myself last week offering to make dinner for Neil and Eddie.\u00a0 One morning I made blueberry waffles and brought them each one.\u00a0 In a moment of clarity I realized that feeding people is one of the ways I like to take care of people. I also realized that feeding people is one of the ways I hope to get people to like me.\u00a0 Neil and Eddie spent most of their days inside working online.\u00a0 At times I found myself waiting for them to take a break or to finish work and come outside and play.\u00a0 I wanted them to like me.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t realize this at the time, but when I got back home to Ehrenberg, it felt like a relief to not have to think of ways to take care of other people.\u00a0 It was just me and Cosmo, and I think he already likes me.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n So I sat outside in the sunshine, enjoying my own company and the company of man\u2019s best friend. We\u2019d look at each other once in a while, and I swear Cosmo smiled back at me every time I smiled at him. We played ball for a while. We are lucky to be staying in such a large area, off the road, with nobody nearby. Cosmo can be off-leash and I can throw the ball as far as I can (I use one of those plastic ball-flingers, so I can throw it pretty far) and he\u2019d run like a greyhound to retrieve it. <\/strong><\/p>\n Monday was warm, a bit overcast and very windy.\u00a0 I stayed inside much of the day and worked on my junk drawer in the kitchen. I have decided to do one cleaning out\/organizing job each day. The junk drawer was a catch-all and starting not to open and close properly. A couple of times it got stuck closed because it was overflowing, and stuff was blocking it from opening.\u00a0 I emptied it out completely, sorted stuff that needed to go in the tool box, and some things that belonged in my \u201celectronics basket.\u201d\u00a0 I ended up with about half the stuff I started with.\u00a0 It only took about half an hour but felt like a huge accomplishment. Then I made vegetable stroganoff (Thanks Carol, for the recipe. It was delicious). I was getting a bit of cabin fever, so in spite of the wind, Cosmo and I took a short walk, and I did some exercises with my rubber bands. <\/strong><\/p>\n Tuesday was cooler, overcast and sprinkling rain.\u00a0 I decided that it would be laundry day.\u00a0 I gathered up all my dirty clothes (most of them already in the pillowcase I use as a laundry bag) and made sure to collect towels and washcloths so that I\u2019d get everything clean.\u00a0 Laundry is usually a big chore to me. I have a mental block about doing laundry on the road. Before I owned a house, I would go to laundromats, and I learned to believe that only poor or mentally ill people do laundry at such a place. Rich people have their own washers and dryers. When I bought my first house, I immediately got a washer and dryer vowing never to do laundry in a laundromat again. Well, on the road, there are few other options and although doing laundry usually doesn\u2019t seem as bad as I remembered, it always seems like a big chunk of time out of my day.\u00a0 In my sticks and bricks home, when I was a massage therapist, I did several loads of laundry daily (mostly sheets, towels, and washcloths from the massage business). But I\u2019d throw them in the washer, take care of a massage client and when I was done, move the laundry from washer to dryer and prepare for the next client.\u00a0 When finished, I\u2019d take the clothes out of the dryer and either fold them and put them away or throw them on the large table in the laundry room, knowing I was going to use the sheets and towels again almost immediately.\u00a0 No time wasted.\u00a0 In a laundromat, I have to sit and wait. And wait. And watch the timer on the washers slowly tick down and then sit and wait some more as I watch the many colors that make up my life tumble in the dryer. But this time I decided, thanks to a chat with my friend Jonah, that there are many \u201cneutral activities\u201d that make up life and we can either push them toward the negative or positive side of the scale depending on our attitude.\u00a0 I chose to make this laundry expedition a positive experience.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n The laundromat in Ehrenberg is run down. More than half the washers and dryers have \u201cOut of Order\u201d signs on the lids\/doors. If there are two people doing laundry, I sometimes have to wait for one of the functioning dryers to become vacant, adding an unnecessary amount of time to my trip. When I went in on Tuesday, I was the only one there, except for the man sweeping the floor and cleaning the machines.\u00a0 We chatted and he recommended which washers were best (there are a hodgepodge of different brands and types of machines) and which (only one) dryer has the best heat.\u00a0 He seemed to admit \u201cWe don\u2019t have many working machines, and some of those don\u2019t work so good either\u201d but he pointed me toward the best options.\u00a0 I put two loads in and pulled out my phone and played a game of solitaire. By the time I won the game, the first washer had finished its cycle and I put the clothes in the recommended dryer and started it up. Then I moved the contents of the second washer into an adjacent dryer and started another game on my phone.\u00a0 In no time the \u201chottest dryer in Ehrenberg\u201d had done its job and I started folding and packing up its contents.\u00a0 When I was finished the second dryer (with fewer clothes) was done and I packed them up and went to the dollar store across the street for treats for me and Cosmo.\u00a0 I was in a pretty good mood and decided that laundry day didn\u2019t have to be a dreaded event. I went home to my spot on BLM land, hung up the clean towels on their racks and put my clean clothes away.\u00a0 It felt good to have everything clean, and since I tend to wear my favorite clothes first, I knew that the next day I could wear my favorite t-shirt and shorts.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Wednesday was even windier and definitely an \u201cinside day.\u201d\u00a0 I watched movies on my laptop and Cosmo mostly just laid across my lap. By the afternoon, we both had cabin fever and we went for a short walk. In spite of the warm temperature, the wind was cold and unrelenting. The walk was very short-lived and we went back inside to watch another movie. Thursday was warm and less windy. We visited Bonnie in the morning and had some outside time in the afternoon, playing ball in \u201cour yard.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n On Friday, I got up early and was fairly organized. By 10:00 I was ready to head over to Q to pick up a package at a Postal Store, dump garbage and top off my fresh water tank. After that I\u2019d made plans to have lunch with a man I met last week at The Magic Circle. We went to Silly Al\u2019s Pizza Place and we both ordered sandwiches. We talked for a long time about our nomadic lives, where we were heading next, and made plans to keep in touch and see each other next winter when we both return.\u00a0 It was a really nice lunch. My first year on the road I mostly only had the friends I\u2019d made over the years, and in between visiting them, Cosmo and I were alone.\u00a0 Now, I have many friends I\u2019ve met on the road. We camp together or meet for meals. This winter I reunited with many people I met last year as they once again passed through southern AZ for the winter or attended events in the area. It feels like I\u2019ve got a new family on the road, and I enjoy it.<\/strong><\/p>\n In the afternoon, I got my weekly call from Richard.\u00a0 He checks in on me every Friday, and we talk, usually for about an hour. Often it takes that long for Richard to solve whatever tech problem I\u2019m having. (He\u2019s been my \u201cAll-Things-Computer\u201d guy since I met him in the late \u201880\u2019s.) It sort of rounded out the day spending time with old friends and new friends. <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Lessons From The Road<\/strong>: My friend Jonah and I have been e-mailing back and forth about how easy it can be to change a neutral experience into a positive one with just a minor attitude adjustment.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been consciously working on that and find that in a day there are about equal numbers of \u201cgood things\u201d and \u201cbad things,\u201d with most of what I do being \u201cneutral.\u201d\u00a0 But with just a tiny push, I can get most of those \u201cneutral things\u201d into the \u201cpositive column\u201d and it sure makes my day a lot more fulfilling.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve spent a lot of time thinking about people I meet on the road and my need to make them like me.\u00a0 After much soul-searching, it came down to realizing that I need to do a better job of liking myself.\u00a0 I often feel inadequate, especially as a gay man in my 70\u2019s.\u00a0 In \u201cgay land\u201d 30 is old. 40 is ancient.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure 70 is even on the map. I put on some weight during Covid and have not made the effort to take it off. My skin has taken a huge hit since I started traveling; I think part of it is the years catching up with me, and part of it is being in the desert so much of the time. My skin is dry and wrinkly and I, who have always looked way younger than my chronological age, now finally look at least<\/em> 70. It\u2019s a bitter pill to swallow, but perhaps the worst part is that I, like many gay men, have reduced myself to the body I inhabit. The man who lives inside is still pretty vibrant, mostly alert and constantly learning.\u00a0 I think I am, for the most part, fun, funny, caring and I do my best to always be kind.\u00a0 I can\u2019t see those traits in my mirror, so I am going to have to remind myself of those qualities ever day. And I think when I feel others are judging me because I look old, or out of shape, it is actually ME judging myself.\u00a0 I think the place to start if I want people to like me is not to feed them blueberry waffles, but instead remind myself that I\u2019m a good person and that *I* would like to have a friend like me.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sunday was a day of sheer bliss.\u00a0 I was back in Ehrenberg. I felt like I just got home from a trip and although the trip was fun, it was nice to be home again. I visited with Bonnie briefly after I arrived back at my usual campsite, and I made lunch. My biggest dilemma … <\/p>\n