Day Five In Manchester

Tomorrow is Day One at my new job and, basically, my identity is scrambled because I'm no longer an unemployed stay-at-home padre in Athens. I'm employed in Manchester. At a buffet-style family restaurant. I'll work this job throughout the summer, until we move to Iowa. And then suddenly I'm a college-level Rhetoric teacher. And a student. The fact that I already have a master's degree in psychology makes this all the weirder. My life, you could say, has been one long, prolonged identity scramble. But whose isn't? It helps, I suppose, if you have a healthy sense of self. I have no sense of self at all, much less a healthy one. I do know that I am from the South. But that's about it. Despite all my personal inquiry, I'm basically an enigma to myself. Maybe having more time to write will change that.

A few minutes ago, I headed up into the woods behind my parents' house and started to create a hiking trail. Wielding a chainsaw, a leaf blower, and some hedge trimmers, I carved into the bramble a 2' niche that weaves around pines, oaks, abandoned tires, and huge stands of poison oak. Stella kept a safe distance when a stick poked me in the eye. I yalped and then thought, "This project will occupy my spare time for quite a while, for the woods are wild and thick with growth. Until I finish, I must maintain my vision and personal hygiene."

My buddy Todd Davis breathed new life into my Mac. It worked swell for a day and a half, then started acting up again. Stalling at red lights, hiccuping on the internet. Embarrassing everyone, really. "Straighten up, man!" I say but it does not listen. "You're gonna have to replace that hard drive, yo," Todd Davis croons from his hot air balloon. From the depths of Hell all the way to Manchester, Georgia - then to Hell again...it's the G4 Powerbook. Pinwheeling like it's going out of style.

The Identity Scramble is really just another way of saying I don't quite feel comfortable in the role I'm supposed to be playing. I'd prefer more consistency, probably. I'd love to be just an old man collecting Social Security, watching the promiscuous angels walk by in the heat of summer, playing checkers on a milk crate and using Miller High Life bottlecaps for game pieces. I'd love to be a breath away from death, smelling the kudzu expand in its forever gully, washing my hands with moist towelettes while the sun drops behind a cloudbank made of maple leaves and old tires.