Day 20

Didn't do much but drive yesterday (Day 19). Although, we did have a delicious meal at a Chinese buffet in Moorhead, MN (basically Fargo, ND). They actually had General Tso's Chicken on the buffet. Fuck the Colonel, I haven't had the General's chicken in over ten years and I LOVE THAT STUFF. For some reason, it doesn't exist in Southern California; no one's even heard of it. But apparently at least Hoosiers, Minnesotans and Pittsburghers have known the joys of General Tso's Chicken. MMMMMMMM.............

Anyway, got in to Gayle's just before midnight. I slept out in the shack because the air pump broke and I couldn't blow up the air mattress. There are people coming in for the jug band competition who'll be staying in the shack tonight, but I wish I could stay in there. It's a just a cozy room with a table and a bed, but it smells so good and it's quiet! Last night I fell asleep listening to the rain and reading "White Water Slim: The Only Man to Ever Ride a Log Thru Dead Man's Rapids." It's 45 pages of a 94-year-old man rambling on about his life as a woodsman/logger.

We would be in our cabin, but it's only just dried in. My uncle fell from a ladder and broke his collar bone and four ribs. Due to his accident, Gayle is letting us stay here at her place since we can't really finish our own cabin. If you didn't know, my dad and his brother bought a little piece of land of up here with an 18-acre lake on it. My family has been coming to this area for 57 years and finally bought something. I'm happy to be settled in the woods in a familiar place for a spell.
I miss Bruno. He should've been on this trip with me. He loved it here.

I took my left nipple ring out after I got out of the shower today. It had migrated a lot and wasn't healing properly. The douche that pierced it screwed it up. It's not that he was a bad piercer, I just think he's too damn cocky and stopped paying attention to quality. I asked him if he'd pierced inverted nipples before and his response was, "I've been doing this for over thirty years, I've done it all." Well, guess what Tommy T, you fucked up. An inverted nipple needs to be stimulated a bunch to coax it out somewhat, then pulled out as much as humanly possible before that needle goes through. The right one was pierced when I was 16 in Turkey with a safety pin and it was just fine (until I took it out ten years later). Because it was pierced for so long, and therefore comes out more, it healed just fine this time, too. But, man, I could tell something wasn't right the moment he pierced the left one, but I didn't say anything because his chairside manner made me feel so ignorant. What a condescending prick. I should just pierce it myself after it heals. I still have some unused needles sealed in their packages from "back in the day." Hell, I could go to the Farm N' Fleet and grab some while we're here. Pretty ridiculous that I pierced myself with safety pins and animal inoculation needles for so long and never had a problem. The minute I pay some jackass to do it for me, I've got a tongue and a nipple migrating, and others that are slightly off-center. I didn't have any training, but I was very good; very attentive to position, aesthetics, symmetry, etc.... People liked my work. Tommy T needs to come down from his roost in Cool World and get his head back into the game. That's what I hate about so many tattoo artists and piercers, they get big heads and think they're too cool for school after a while. They can suck my butt. Argh!

Okay, I'm going to go enjoy the lovely day before the rain comes and we run off to the laundromat so we get that playa dust out of everything. I have absolutely no cell reception, but a text message come though here and there, so feel free to send me a "hei hei." We do have Internet access. I'll be on here and there. Watch for me on Skype.