I got my fabulous purple scooter back yesterday after it had been in the shop for like a month and a half. Had a nice day enjoying it, didn’t have to go to work (always nice), blah blah. Yesterday evening I pick up a hookah and a bong from a friend, for another friend for his photo shoot and head down into the Marigny to deliver on banging purple scooter. Oh, by the way, during my journey from uptown to the Marigny, my headlight goes out. So, I’m definitely doing the back road, dodge the cops thing because really how funny would it be if I get pulled over for the headlight and they notice the hookah top sticking out of my backpack. Would have been an interesting conversation believe you me. Luckily that did not happen. Moving on.

I get to my destination, the Country Club, this really banging bar/restaurant/pool/hot tub setup. Really beautiful place. Lots of naked gay people and some straight people hanging out. Good times. Anyway, the friend I was making the delivery for convinces me to stay, so we’re chilling and hanging out for about an hour or so. And when it comes time to leave I walk outside to said awesome purple scooter, turn the key and….

Nothing. Won’t start. I believe I said, “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” With a slightly amused shake of my head and a little sigh, I pull out my gold triple A card and give them a call. They come in the big truck and try to jump start the battery, nada. The better news is, he can’t tow it because he didn’t have a dolly or something he needed. I told him not to worry about it, I’ll take care of this in the morning. So, I call my brother, he comes to get me, I go home, definitely smoke something because really I just dropped a hundred bucks on this thing and its still not fixed. I watch the notebook (because its the best movie ever) with my teddy bear to console me (say nothing about my teddy bear, he’s cute) and pass out.

I wake up slightly later than I wanted too, whatever. I jump in the bro’s ride, dump the system, make my laundry run first because I do have to work today and I need clean work clothes. After I’m done I call triple A to have them meet me at the spot I left the scooter to tow it back to the shop. When I get to the spot I left the scooter…

….there is no scooter. No really, I’m not kidding. Banging purple scooter is MIA. Now, I left it on the corner on the sidewalk, next to a bar, next to the CC. I go into the CC, ask around, they haven’t seen it. I go into the bar, talk to the owner, he saw it at about 5 am, after that, no idea. Someone ganked my broken purple scooter.

I get back in the car, sit there for a moment and quite appropriately (true story now, really, nothing is being embellished here) on the CD I have playing the song that pops is “bad day” chipmunk 2008 style. What else is there to do really, but turn it up, have a laugh and sing along?

So the bass is dumping my chipmunk song and I’m consoling myself with the knowledge that obviously I was not meant to have this scooter. And it probably just saved me some money getting the fing thing fixed when it was always broken, because I surely don’t have another hundred this payweek to dump into it. So, someone has just saved me a hundred bucks. Thank you someone. But my glow stick and flashlights were in the trunk and I would like those back. Minor detail. Anyway -

Deciding that I am not going to flip about this, it’ll be all right, I go home, get ready for work and walk to the streetcar stop. Now, wait, more funny. I’m like at the corner, the street car stop is dead across the street and I see the streetcar go by. A car is blocking the tracks so I jog a little and get there…right as its pulling off. I wave arms, nope it anit stopping. So of course I’m thinking wow, it’s really going to be one of those days. All righty.

But again I console myself, really not too big of a deal, they run every 10 to 15 minutes during the day. About five minutes go by before the next one rumbles down. I hop on it. Now, I see two people sitting in the back. There are rows of seats but I prefer the back side seats under the windows. As I walk back there, I’m debating whether or not to just hop into a row but instead I go with a little tick that nudges me back there and sit down. I’ve got my music playing via my cd player, nice breeze going so the plan is to zen myself out a little bit because damn I need it today. I use streetcar time for visuzaltion and meditation anyway. And for checking out the cute guy across from me, because I’ve got the sunglasses on where you can’t see my eyes so he doesn’t know I’m checking him out. Hehehe.

He looks familiar but I’m not sure why until about thirty seconds later. I never forget a face. Your name I will never remember, your face I will never forget. I realize that I met him very briefly, back when I did the NAU protest. I took Jim and Dave and Thomas out to bourbon and we ened up in one of the bars where the guy sitting across from me now on the streetcar bartends. The reason this is significant is because that night he handed me a publication called Section 8. It is a independent publication, a New Orleans undergorund of free thinkers, with poetry, and awesome editorals, etc from the people who live here about anything and everything. You can check them out at www.section8nola.com. Anyway, that night however many months ago, he handed me a copy. I took it home, read it, made a mental note that I wanted to somehow get invovled with it and never did. About, maybe three weeks ago, I was on the streetcar coming home from work and I found a copy of another edition of Section 8 on the ground right underneath where I chose to sit. I Picked it up then, kinda went hm, and made another note to look into getting invovled with it, and never did.

Now coming back to the present, dude did not remember me, but, (Daniel is his name) as he’s standing up to get off the streetcar today, for whatever reason that motivitated him to do so, he hands me a copy of their newest edition. Just silently hands it to me. I take it and probe him if he bartends on bourbon, confirm my suspicision, we exchange names, a short conversation and he hops off.

So, I think it’s time I got the hint. Really. There’s a little flyer in the back about a party I must definitely go and check out and I’m just going to have to get invovled with and learn more about this kick ass group. At this point, it’s pretty obvious that I’m suppose to do so.

After he got off the streetcar, I just sat there in a state of wonderment. And then I had to giggle again (which made the guy next to me look at me amusedly but whatever) because you have to wonder, if my entire morning, well really, starting the night before all sort of clicked into place like the pieces of the puzzle. So I can’t say that the day turned out all that bad. It may have looked that way to start, but those “bad” things were good things in disguse putting me where I needed to be. Your world gets pretty tricksy when you start to think about it like that.

It’s an interesting, fun journey on the path to Ascension.

But I have to confess, I hope I’m done for the day. Really.