I Have Found Me A Home

It's a beautiful sunny day here in America's Playground, and if I didn't have to work tonight, there would be some rum in my glass of Coke. So I'm drinking the unleaded stuff today. But I'm just kicking it here at the house, catching up on email from the last week, and reorganizing my stuff into smaller and smaller boxes. My closet is completely full and my storage junk needs to be consolidated. So that's what I'm doing--trying to make room for all of my clothes and throwing out junk that I've been carrying around for the past few years.

I'm beginning to feel like Vegas is home, so organizing my nest is now a priority. No more living out of boxes and suitcases. It's time to unpack for real.

But providing the soundtrack to my day is the two-disc Meet Me in Margaritaville set that Hoya copied for me before she came out a couple weeks ago. I will admit that I've been kind of slacking as far as listening to Jimmy Buffett is concerned, but I have a reason for that, even if it borders on low-grade psychosis.

For a couple of years, all I ever listened to was Jimmy Buffett and nothing else. So whenever I hear it, it reminds me of all the good times I had hanging out in my buddy Ed's backyard. For a long time it was The Party House, and I can't even begin to count all of the times we'd hang out back there, grilling steaks, tapping the keg, playing volleyball in the pool, and sometimes getting high in the toolshed. And Brother Jimmy provided the soundtrack each and every time. We had so many cool parties that created so many great memories, and whenever I hear Jimmy Buffett tunes, they trigger those memories--the parties at Ed's house, the sailing trips, the concerts where I'm doing tequila shots from semi-nude parrot head chicks in the parking lot, camping trips up to the pines outside of Payson, road trips to Vegas and San Diego--all the great times I had with my best friends.

Of course, on the road trips when we'd drive through Kingman, Derek would pop his little head up from the jumpseat in my truck and start singing Pencil Thin Mustache as soon as we'd see the sign for the Andy Devine Blvd exit. And we'd laugh every time.

And there was the time Ed forgot to call home after we got to Catalina, and so his dad panicked and called out the Coast Guard to search for us, saying our boat was missing. They found us later that night, safely anchored in a cove off of Catalina Island, drunk on rum, listening to Boats, Beaches, Bars, and Ballads, playing poker and smoking cigars in the cockpit, oblivious to the fact that the entire Coast Guard south of Pt. Conception was out looking for us.

Or that time right after I got laid off from Schwab, and my buddies were so pissed off that one day lounging around the pool Derek made an almost irresistable business proposition. He found a beach bar for sale down in Belize. The plan was to cash in all of our stock options and 401k money, form a partnership, and buy it. It might've happened, but somebody beat us to it. But Jimmy was there for the first (and last) board meeting.

Those days are over now. I only get to see those guys a couple times a year now. Ed moved to a new house further northwest out of Phoenix, Eddie B moved further southeast, Derek moved to Austin, and here I am in Vegas. I don't know if the four of us will ever get together again in Ed's backyard and party like we used to, so those are truly treasured memories.

Because of that, I don't want to listen to too much Jimmy Buffett these days--I don't want to cheapen the memories. A few years down the road when this pirate looks at forty, I don't want to hear Fruitcakes and think about all those times I sat in my room folding laundry and organizing my closet.

Mikey