Stream of consciousness at 3 AM January 27, 2024
3 AM, again, I came home after having met with an old friend of mine. The weather’s been weird, cloudy high 30s lotta moisture in the air -tends to wrap itself around the body, it’s one of the reasons why I like ride my bike for transportation because I feel everything, and I got home and walked into the entrance of my apartment building and I saw the disconnection notice stuck in my door. Crap -I didn’t think they were gonna turn off the electricity until the spring. Power companies, I hate the fact we need them . It’s just another false reality. We have getting energy without consequences, when I go on long-distance expeditions invariably you, or I will go on roads that are parallel to railroads you see the trains passing loaded with coal or just crap we don’t need. It’s so funny that one of our false reality is is to get an electric car or electric bike we’re really making a difference and yet we’re not it’s just greenwashing it’s crap. These are things I think of at 3 AM, but these are things that we don’t talk about, there’s a lot of things in life we don’t talk about eg going to the bathroom, picking your nose, masturbation, Farting, lusting after some body else’s wife, or husband, but we all do it right? Do you know you do? Sometimes I think I’m mad, in the crazy sense of being mad, I live life backwards like a native American Heyoke not in the sense of walking backwards, or riding a horse backwards no it’s just living life outside the ordinary bounds of what is considered proper etiquette, proper traditional living, you know what I’m talking about, there’s just things I never really understood and I guess I see things differently, well like for instance what I’m writing right now there’s not too many people that write like this. It’s probably probably making you a little bit uncomfortable, And I don’t care- do you know why -because it’s authentic, and you know you’re drawn in because it’s interesting I mean who wakes up at 3 o’clock and talks about masturbation, well, probably a lot of people but they just don’t talk about it. I’ve been on a journey for a while a mental journey to become a better writer and I’ve been studying writers and different ways to write everything from Hemingway, to Bukowski, Steinbeck, John Buchan, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Kerouac, and a bunch of others that chances are, you’ve never read, and the only reason why read them or know of them is because I like listening to audio books from a website called Librivox, it’s a place where you can listen to volunteer recordings of books that are out of print most of them are from the early 1900s, and books that without that site, I don’t think I’ve ever would’ve known. It’s almost like going into a librarian instead of going to the card index just walking down the isles of books and looking for titles that seem interesting. One that comes to mind is Diary of a Dead Officer by Arthur Graham West, the story of a man who was a soldier in World War I and the story of maturing with war, and changing his views about life. For example, he stopped believing in God, he started smoking and drinking when he didn’t before, he also realize the absurdity of war, and the book is great because it’s also a biography, talks about him growing up and then going to war because that’s what you did doing your duty and all, and he was a writer and started really writing, pretty intense poetry and overtime that poetry evolved and that’s basically what the book is about is his poetry and descriptions of war in the trenches of World War One and one day he was coming out of a trench and a snipers bullet found him. I talk of war because these days war is loosely, threaded into the media, irresponsibly, and most of you don’t understand what war is and most of you have never even been in a war or have ever had to be in any kind of situation where you had to defend yourself physically -i’ve never been in war in a war, I went to military school from the time I was 14 to 17 and I heard a lot of stories from the military instructors about their experiences in war, I joined the Marine Corps during the first Gulf War but luckily, didn’t make it through Boot Camp primarily because I decided I couldn’t kill anybody and being in my mid-20s. I wasn’t the type of recruit that the Marines wanted I asked too many questions invariably “why“ not a question somebody wants you to ask when they want you to blindly go kill people.
We all have journeys in our life. One of my journey started when I was a little boy, I come from a big family myself, six older sisters, and two parents, who, drank and smoke too much which caused an early death, were good people, and interesting. World War II Americans caught up in the false reality of the 50s, but that’s another story.
When I was a little boy, I would wake up in the middle of the night and going to my parents sitting room where my dad was usually -would’ve been at like two or three in the morning, and he would be smoking cigarettes and reading or writing he told me later on in life that he liked that time because it was his time and it was quiet time, and I would ask him innocently as a seven year old boy to read to me, and he instructed me to go out to the bookcase and find a book that I wanted to read And I remember vividly the books that I chose were books of adventure, some non-fiction some fiction books like Little House on the Prairie series, Wizard of Oz series, stories of the great explorers well, mostly the explorers of the Americas, like Cortez. My dad was a good reader, with a great voice. I wish I had had a tape of it. It’s one of the reasons why I like the audiobooks from Librivox and if you find a person who is a good reader, it really makes you enjoy the book better. although I read quite a bit, I’ve never been “a reader“ I always prefer somebody else to read to me. Well, I’m starting to fade, I just wanted to write this for you. I’m gonna be writing a lot more, and I’m glad of this place to be able to publish my writing. Being authentic is very important. I’ve had many experiences my life that I think you’ll find interesting and I plan to share them all as I tell you stories of my travels and adventures. Please subscribe and leave me a comment so I know you’re reading this. I don’t care if you’re paid subscriber or not if nobody pays for it I’ll figure out a way to make money to live. I did manage to get my electricity turned back on. Let’s just hope that the gas company doesn’t do the same thing I don’t really care I’m not gonna die. Thanks again for reading my writing peace and love from the road Bill Poindexter.
Bio: i’ve been a writer, my entire life, everything from poetry to fiction to non-fiction. I prefer stream of consciousness just like I was sitting down with you, and having a cup of coffee and talking about life. I live a very simple life I don’t own a car, so I bike in a walk for transportation and travel. Much of my riding is telling stories about my adventures on the road. These days I primarily travel by bicycle, and over the last 20 years, I’ve had some great adventures; riding my bike from New Mexico, up into Canada, and Los Angeles down through Baja Mexico, Kansas City, to Yorktown, Virginia, all over Colorado, Montana, Idaho, British Columbia, Kansas, Missouri, New England, some of my journeys are just overnight, bike rides, and others or multi week rides, and I carry my own camping gear, so just think of backpacking, but on a bicycle a.k.a. bikepacking, and I wrote a book called Bikepacking School and a second edition is coming out soon. And I work very hard on writing, authentically and interweaving my life experiences within my travel stories as well. And I haven’t owned a car for many years. So I live completely car free.
And I follow my heart and live life on my own terms, as I’m sure most of you do.
Find me on https://open.substack.com/pub/bpoindexter?r=3axrjg&utm_medium=ios for more writings and podcast
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