How it always comes back to the dirt.

Dirt Nite just wasn't the same last night without our friend Mary. She was too tired to drive from the top of her mountain down towards the sea and up the little hill by the garbage dump to our felt and dirt filled covered arena.

Did you know that? That Dirt Nite isn't just dirty, but it sits on a hill right by the dump. Before it goes dark, you can look across and see dozers and flocks of seagulls circling the vast sea of trash, and think about that paper cup you got Starbucks earlier in the day. How a chunk of a tree was chopped down in it's prime and boiled up with toxic bleaches, just to hold that coffee for the few minutes it takes to drink, and then how a whole hillside is day in and day out excavated and stripped down, all to bury up that cup, for all of eternity and forever, leaching and bleaching the dirt and everything that lies under it, covered in layers by more and more garbage and more and more dirt by the crawlers of giant oil spewing noise machines until there's no more room and another hill gets ripped apart just for throwing away crap.

Just a cheery little thought I like to have every time I throw something away. Try it, it's fun!

I also try to remember not to go all backy uppy when I have a tight serp to do. It's one of my bad habits. We had many places to work on this at Dirt Nite. But just like I keep throwing crap away in the garbage, I keep finding myself just enough out of position running dogs that I have to go and do it again.

Right before I run, I try to put that picture in my head of every single place I want to be and where I should be pointing. Drive yourself in nice and across the jump, hold steady, and don't run backwards.

Except instead, I might think about the garbage.

Or start playing with Hobbes and think how cute he is.

Or watch Otterpop run with my friend Dee and wonder how a sausagey little submarine can go so fast with it's head up like that. Doesn't her neck hurt?

I make Gustavo spin in little circles and that's when I'm supposed to be thinking important, non running backwards thoughts, and he looks like a little stuffed animal that's almost falling over. He's not a very coordinated circle spinner.

Which makes me think, wouldn't he have been a good character on Hee Haw?

Did they even have dogs on Hee Haw? If they didn't, they should have had Gustavo.

Should I get a banjo? Would that be hard to learn to play? Could I figure out how to play heavy metal banjo power chords so I could sing nice songs to the dogs?

Because wouldn't that be cool to wear my high green rubber boots and play a banjo? Especially if we go out to Death Valley. I sure want to go there.

And also to the bazillion year old Bristle Cone pines. And find some ghost towns.

Uh oh. It's my turn and I'm on ghost towns. Not the fixed up ones. The really rubbly ones on unmarked dirt roads. Where it's good to have 4wd on your car. In the dirt. Don't want to get stuck out there, in the dirt.

The dirt. The dirt. Makes me think of what?

Oops. On the startline. So much for the serp. We'll try it again. And again.