Here's another artifact, uncovered in my recent move to the bachelor pad.

This is the first of two entries made in my little red, faux leopard-skin journal one fine day on the coast of Maine, early in the progress of my fateful motorcycle road-trip during the summer of '84. The second entry, along with the whole story of that journey's coming to pass, is posted here.

In the old days, you could bribe the guy to use a sharpened axe. Nowadays, you don't even know which guy it is, or when a blade will fall. Nowadays, life is like scrambling through a booby-trapped, poised field of 'em. And you're like James Bond, constantly in danger, but keeping your cool about it. Villains to the left of you, scoundrels to the right. How you've managed to evade the squadrons of 'em this long you can't even fathom. And it's a big world you're moving through!

Paranoia? Perhaps, but your reality, nonetheless.

So, you get away from the city - for a while - and try to look at other worlds.

There, on the rocks near the beach, you focus on an almost microscopic red insect crawling across a stone plateau, and your eye zooms back and wide-angles to see about 9 cubic yards of bank, resplendent with treacherous 10 inch cliffs, towering 12 inch stalks of grass, 2 inch boulders and tiny chasms.

Zoom in tight to the bug again -- he's going about 55 miles an hour at a millimeter per second. You realize that these 9 cubic yards are this bug's entire universe. And you felt limited!

Suddenly, you are shocked by the thunderous sound of the next obvious conclusion come rattling across your synapses, and you look up. No gigantic creature looking down on you that you can detect. So you pan back down and focus on the islands, the bays, the little waves crashing on the rocks, on your naked feet bathed in sunlight, and over to the little red bug, who has sped his way to about an inch from the very spot you first focused on.

So, you drop your drawers and give yourself a smack on the ass, and you say to yourself, "Hey Champ! Wake up and smell the coffee! Take a shit, get dressed and get the hell out in that world of yours!"

And you think you will, too...