7:53 p.m.: Washington Post Drive, overheated motor. Report of a dishwasher smoking. Upon arrival occupant had shut off power to unit and it had stopped smoking.

Bad dishwasher! That was my best meerschaum, you bastard!

Um, it won’t light.

disassemble a zippo lighter: Don’t. The lighter parts are riveted and the rivets welded into place. You can aways disassemble it anyway, but you’ll feel damn stupid sending it back into Zippo to get it repaired, unless you’re just tinkering with a test lighter you don’t really care about.

smoke catnip: What are you? Retarded?

After some time went by, I started thinking about what that really meant. I think homesick is a yearning for things you’ve done, wish you hadn’t have done, or wish you could have done differently. It’s not so much of a place, but of a feeling, of a time.

If I’m realistic, all my old hangouts have become something else, like parking lots now. There weren’t many friends, as I was always somewhat a solitary person. I liked being around people, but not really with people. Sometimes not even around people. I was invisible in school, and just worked a lot. Some of those people were close to me, but those ties just wore away with time.

Then there were others who I unexpectedly outlived. Tom, Marvin, Vince, Melody, Kathy and more. Kind of wish I could go back and make my peace with some of them.

The times I have tried to reach back through time, I’ve just mostly pissed off the people I was trying to reconnect to. Time glosses over your memories, and you forget how much you’ve hurt someone or how much they’ve hurt you.

I remember coming out of a store once, and seeing a harvest moon. Fat, orange, and huge, hanging in space above me. I’ve never seen one like it again.

Wanting to go home is a little like that. It becomes huge in your memory, but you don’t get to go home again.

Fort Wayne