July 15

Yesterday. last year, I was in Crater Lake National Park with my friend from Big Bear.  Jhni had flown up here and we drove back to Big Bear together, and a year ago yesterday, we were there, looking at Crater Lake.

  I felt a want to go for a longish drive yesterday – it’s that time of year – so I drove east in the Columbia Gorge, to exit 104 on I-84, where I turned north and crossed the river into Washington to go see the life-size recreation of Stonehenge that stands on Maryhill.

There is a reason the last line of my diary’s title page has a quote from Rudyard Kipling – "I am the cat who walks alone and all things are the same to me".  I AM – I don’t have any reason to trust or believe anyone else.  For example, I thought I was going to make the drive with a woman that I’d met lately (last entry says something about a story to tell there, but ya know, with her blowing off the road trip yesterday, I don’t think it’s a story I want to tell any more). It’s been my experience that it’s a waste of time to believe anything anyone says – the proof is in the doing.  You say you’re going to do something, fine.  Shut up and do it.  Don’t waste my air with bogus claims.

Well, I could go on, but I’d just be repeating myself.  People, especially women, are less than reliable.  Not all of them, for sure.  My former wife was fairly reliable, and so is my friend Jhni, but many that I’ve met, I do not know now or have in my life now.  When that woman didn’t answer her phone yesterday, and was not outside waiting like she said she’d be, I thought about staying home and realized that I’d be wasting my time to feel bad about this thing, and I would miss the ride I wanted to take.  Portland was gray and dreary yesterday morning, and I wanted to drive into the light… and did.

Screw feeling bad because of someone not doing what they said they would – happens all the time, and is the reason I walk alone.

*****

next up (after editing) a few pics from the drive yesterday