I have carefully re traced my path from the last time that I was on the Stream, I know I stopped by several places the last time that I was here, But I don’t think that I left much of a trace when I left. I pause to consider some of the paths, that I had taken before I end up at the office of the Blogstream lost and found. I take a number and then a seat, and find myself between some old guy and a lady with her pet parrot. I ignore the strangeness of the situation my mind slowly returning to what Pbear and Boris had both said.
“Maybe it was Them damn Blog Gnomes Scratchy! They take everything!”
The lady behind the long wooden counter calls the number right before mine and I set about the task of finding an acceptable description of exactly what it is that I have lost. So. How do you describe something that bears no physical description?
“Excuse me ma’am? I seem to have lost my writing Mojo.”
“Whaa Waa Waaa?”
“Well, you see.. I’m not sure what it looks like.. I-”
“Whaa?….. Whaaaa Whaaa Whaa Whoooo?”
“No Ma’am. I’m not being a smart ass.”
“Waaaa. Waaaaaa. Waaa Waaa?”
“Yes Ma’am.. I can certainly understand your skepticism. But I need to find my Mojo.. I have some writing to do. I think that I lost it here on the Stream.”
“Waaa Waaa Waaaaa Wah Wah Wah?”
“No Ma’am I haven’t reported it to Pioneer, I think he has more important things on his mind. Look.. Can you help me or not?”
“Whaaa Whaaa Whaaa.”
“Well Thank you for your time, I believe that gentleman over there is next ma’am, I think that I heard him mention that he lost a trout bra or something.”
I head out the door and turn in the direction of the Tomb, and upon my arrival home I find it dark and pleasingly quiet. I enter the front door and slide dejected into my desk chair, almost simultaneously starting up the computer. I can feel someone staring over my shoulder. I recognize the scent of Doctor Feelgoddess.
“Any Luck?”
I shake my head no.



She goes to the kitchen to make coffee, leaving my mind to its own devices. The blank screen of the word processor seems to stare at me as it patiently waits for my fingers to access the keyboard. I spell a single word and then erase it. Then another, followed by another, and then erase it again, pausing momentarily to reflect on the simplicity of what I had just done. I could still spell, I could still put words together. So what is the problem? Perhaps I haven’t been asking the right questions. Perhaps the problem isn’t with Magic or Mojo. My fingers slowly return to the keyboard, slowly more words begin to take shape, forming into brief sentences.
What.

Inspires..

You?.
I think about that. The word itself is magic. Inspiration. So what does Inspire me? Well the answer isn’t clear at first. I think about life. I think about nature and all of the good and bad in people. People that I have known throughout my lifetime. I think about the people that I have known for the past two and a half years on the Blogstream and the images and beautiful words of this wonderful reflective tapestry of life that I have come to know and love as the World Wide Web. And it is then that I realize, it isn’t mojo or magic that I have been looking for, it was inspiration. The good doctor returns with some fresh java and she pulls up a chair beside of me. Once again my fingers return to the keyboard, one word into two, two into three. Sentences silently fall into paragraphs. Doc looks over my shoulder.
“Hey Scratchy.. that’s pretty good.”
I look up into her beautiful blue eyes and suddenly I am once again inspired.

~Scratch~

Hmmmmm. Lets see here. Once upon a time. Grrrrr. Noooo. Try again. Ok. There once was a man. Hmmmm.. A truly wise man. Hmmm. Nope. What made him so damn wise?.. *Scratch - Scratch* Scribble- Scribble* damn it all. Friggin eraser tore the paper again. Grrr. With a patience and ease that has been uncharacteristic of me lately, I move over to the computer abandoning the proper tools of a real writer, and bring up the familiar screen of my Windows word processor. Once upon a time.. No too damn predictable! I retreat to the inner workings of my stressed out mind. “I’ve lost it.. Shit I had it awhile ago. But now its gone! I pause a moment to reflect upon what exactly “IT” could be, and I decide that the conclusion that I have reached is well.. Inconclusive.

I pull up the phone and relate the entire dilemma to the willing ears of my favorite therapist aka Doctor Feelgoddess . She tells me that she can see me right away and so I head out over to her office, I enter the room with caution and I see her, she’s sitting behind her desk wearing the customary white skirt and blouse. she looks radiant. but I am here because of my dilemma. I sit across from her and relate the entire scene to her frame by frame, she is running the eraser end of a no. 2 pencil across her ruby red lips analyzing every word carefully.
“And you don’t know exactly what it is that you’ve lost Scratchman?”
“Well Doc. I’m not sure exactly what its called.”
“Does it serve a specific function?”
“Yes it is what helps me to write.. To create. To imagine”
“Are you saying that you’ve lost your writing Mojo?”
“My mojo! Eureka! that’s it!! I’ve lost my writing mojo!”
“Well Scratchman. that’s going to be a tough one to find. Do you remember where you had it last?”
Hmmmm. I give that thought a few minutes to circulate through my brain.
“The last time I wrote anything I was at the Tomb.”
She re crosses those gorgeous legs of hers.
“Well Scratchy..” she tells me. “If you are going to start looking for it, you’d best start looking there.”
We both stand up and she gives me a quick hug which I intentionally try to prolong.
“Thanks for listening Doc. I guess I’ll try there first.”
I exit the building and head back to the Tomb to interrogate the usual suspects.



My writing mojo. I repeat the words a half a dozen times or so before I arrive to interrogate the other residents of the Tomb. I look up at the large gray dragon, and relate to him the tale.
“Your writing Mojo Scratch buddy? I don’t know What does it look like?”
“Well I don’t know Asa. I’ve never actually seen it, but I don’t think that I can write without it.”
He scratches his chin thoughtfully.
“Well. I will be sure to keep my eyes open for it."
I move into the living room where I see Ralphie T Lion lounging on the futon watching ESPN.
“Ralphie? Have you seen my Writing Mojo around here somewhere? I seem to have lost it.”
He makes that strange little slurping sound that most humans identify with big animals his tail begins to swish almost impatiently back and forth..
“I Dunno Scratch dude. What’s it look like?
I try to come up with a suitable description.
“Well.”
“You know I saw Mr. P rubbing his hairy ol ass on something over in the corner this morning when I got here. Maybe he got your mojo thingy.”
A slight ruckus ensues from beneath the futon as small billows of dust clouds pour from beneath the mattress frame. The small green figure of Boris The Gremlin appears. He has two black eyes. The dust bunny gang that co exist with him under my futon have beaten him up again. In a squeaky yet gruff Russian accent he softly curses colorful expletives in their direction, before looking up at me.
“Sup Scratchman?”
“I lost my mojo Boris, haven’t seen it around have you?”
“No Scratchman.. Maybe dust bunny gang stole it from under futon.”
He crouches over in front looking underneath the futon shaking his little green fist angrily.
“Little brown bastards!! Give Scratchman back his Mojo thing!”
Ralphie and I look on in continued amazement. before the large lion looks up at me.
You know Scratch dude. You might have lost it somewhere on the Blogstream. Maybe you should check the lost and found there, they have a office for that I hear. Retrace your steps. You’ll find it.”
I consider the notion and decide that perhaps Ralphie is onto something before Boris once again interjects into the conversation. He is now sitting on the futon beside of Ralphie dangling both of his boney green legs over its side.
“Maybe the Blog gnomes took your mojo Scratchman.” he offers.
I sit at the desk and turn on the computer and prepare myself to return to the Blogstream, when quite suddenly I have yet another epiphany, and I find myself entertaining the thought that it is quite possible that the only thing in reality that I may have truly lost here is my mind.

Scratch.

I don’t know exactly what it is with me. This morning, something just struck me wrong at work. The pallets of blank piston forgings just didn’t look right. I had them all lined up and all, and the floor was spotless but the damn forgings just didn’t look straight to me. The whole line of pallets were all veering to the left.
So I asked my buddy Richard.
“Hey Ritchie. Do these damn pallets look like they are all in a straight line to you?”
He stands at one end of the long line of pallets and leans forward and gives it a good squint.
“Hmmmmph.. They look fine to me.” He says with a shoulder shrug.
So now I’m thinking to myself.
“Self? What? Is this guy Freakin blind?”
So my next question.
“Ok Ritchie.. Where’s the long pallet jack?”
He waves a finger at the largest roll up door without answering, and I spot the Pallet Jack near the coolant barrels. I retrieve it and begin to outline my plan of attack on the lopsided row of pallets. I figured it would be easy, start at the end, set the first one to where it looked straight and then line up all of the others along side of it until they all became straight. This is where the trouble started. I carefully slid the first six pallets in to place within like, the first twenty minutes. I was stoked, so I triumphantly stood at the end of the line and marveled at my momentary genius. However whilst I marveled, unknown to me there was treachery afoot. When I decided to continue onward with my conquest I turned in horror to see that someone from the machine shop had hijacked my pallet jack! Damnit all! Crapola even! I looked around and it was gone. So I figured oh well I’ll just use the fork lift. Nope someone had taken the forklift outside and was unloading a truck with it. Oh this is the painful part. I don’t know how it happened that I convinced myself that a 650 lb pallet of aluminum wasn’t really all of that heavy. (Silly fucking me.) so I looked around for a few minutes and no one was watching, so I guess I just figured that it was the perfect opportunity for me to do something really friggin stupid with no witnesses around.



A little voice, just sorta popped into my head.
“Hey Scratch! It doesn’t look so heavy.. and it’s only out of whack by a couple of seven inches or so. Go ahead.. Nobodies lookin. Just give it a little nudge.”
You know. Its amazing the stupid shit that you’ll try when no one is around. So I give the pallet a little shove with my legs. And what you know? It moved!! about a speck, but I felt it move! That little voice returned.
“C’mon Scratch you got it now buddy! Put your back into it!!”
that’s about the time when the man pain struck. Yeah, I wrote about it before about two years ago, it hasn’t changed much either, it still hurts like a B**ch! Man Pain. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this term, allow me to enlighten you. Man Pain occurs when some foolish ninny, (Like Me.) attempts to move and or lift a heavy object that said ninny has no business attempting to move without a pallet jack or forklift. You definitely know when man pain occurs because your testicles jump up into your throat and begin to scream in your ear like a horny she banshee. “HEEEEEEYYY!!! What in the hell are you doing??? Get a forklift you idiot!! What ? Do you wanna give yourself a hernia?”
No. I didn’t injure myself seriously, but it was enough of a burning in the groin feeling to wake my ass up. My testy’s quit burning around oh 2:30 pm or so. And I got some help lining up the remaining pallets and I did manage to make it home in one piece. I am just going to sit here for awhile. I’m not going to attempt to lift anything heavier than say--- a cup of coffee . I learned something today. Something that I could have probably figured out without risking bodily injury to myself had I simply stopped to fully analyze the situation properly. Pallets of aluminum pistons are way too heavy to be moving without a forklift or pallet jack. I really don't know what gets into me sometimes, why can't I get it through my thick head that I just can't do the same things that I did when I was Twenty. (Not that I could have moved a 650 lb pallet of aluminum then either.) Oh well. At least my pride is still intact, it may be bruised a little but it is intact. Thank god it’s the weekend.

~Scratch~

I have been sitting here alone again, like the other night when all of the noise shut down for most of the evening. Only difference is, this time, the choice wasn’t forced on me, this time, I chose the quiet over the noise so I could sit here by myself and listen to the wind outside and just think. The book is closed and now its just me and thought. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how people are so different and yet in so many ways the same. I have known a few people who were well off, and even more who weren’t. it has occurred to me that a person can spend- no. make that waste, a lot of time on trying to live up to the expectations of other people. Many dreams are crushed, trampled and lost that way I think. I have seen people rich and poor alike, pretending to want what someone else wanted for them, instead of choosing and following their own path.



“Daddy wants me to be a doctor.” or “Mommy wants me to be a Lawyer.” so what? Abandon what you want to be? Give up your life to live someone else’s dream? At some point I believe that a person must listen to their own heart, and follow it to the end. Be true to you first. People can be a little bit selfish with their expectations of other’s at times. I have heard people tell their children that they only want what’s best for them, but at the same time they choose either not to see or flat out ignore the pressure that such expectations can put on the shoulders of people. Happiness is so damn hard to achieve anyways it seems. Life is fragile and short, why waste it on the pursuit of something that in the end will more than likely make you miserable. Be what you want to be, live how you want to live, love hard, live free, never stop dreaming. Sounds like a plan to me.

~Peace~
-Scratch-

Doobix.com

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Dateline: Friday April 4th 2008. Place: Carson City Nevada. 4:28 pm. All was well in the Tomb at this time. I was personally engaged in my third complete re-write of a ongoing series I’m working on online called “The Cherry Creek Prophecies.” I was doing the third re-write on part nine and had finished the opening and was half way’s through part one. I paused momentarily to take a break and to cruise the Blogstream area of the web. I signed on and nothing was going on so I went back to writing. 4:54 Pm, I had been writing for over twenty five minutes straight when I began to suspect that there was something terribly wrong. Friday April 4th, 4:55 Pm, I tried to log back onto the internet via my Mozilla web Browser. When suddenly… BAMA!! The white page of death. “Mozilla cannot find the Server at Blogstream.com.” I tried Myspace. Same deal. So I quickly switch to IE7. Bama! The white page of death “This Page cannot be displayed.” so I look down at the modem and see that only three of the little green lights were working. I lost my internet connection. So I bellowed that phrase that has become oh so familiar to me since the infancy of my internet life in the past five years. “DAAAAAMMMMN YOOOOOUU CHAAAAAARRRTER!!! The next seven minutes were spent in the usual fashion, scratching my chin thoughtfully, followed quickly by shouting colorful expletives at the blank computer screen.



So I stumble from the front door of the apartment and begin to scan the evening cityscape for a likely suspect, a white Charter van with multiple ladders draped over it side. But alas anon, no luck. That is until I see my neighbor James stumbling from HIS apartment with a similar look of dejection on his face. “Cable Internet?” I asked. He nodded. “Yep. Here, Gardnerville, South Lake Tahoe, Dayton, Fernley and as far east as Fallon.” come to find out there had been an accident on East lake Blvd, in Washoe valley and a trucker took out two or three power poles and three spans or so of cable wires. Everything south of Reno went out. Internet service wasn’t returned until late last night and some of my cable service still isn’t working. But at least they got the internet working properly now. So what was I to do last night? I started to put in a Dvd but stopped myself, wait this is a golden opportunity that I have here, no television, No Phone to bug me, and my closest neighbor was as bummed out as I was over the whole ordeal. So I took out the book that I was going to write a small series of posts about and I read for four hours. The Book? its called “The Enigma of the Knights Templar: Their History and Mystical Connections. I may still do the post series because I have always been fascinated by this sort of thing, but I want to get another book first of course I have to do more research, the material will probably not be to everyone’s taste but this is just one of those things that I want to attempt for me. And besides all of that I am always looking for another excuse to go to Border’s YAY! More reading! Happy Saturday my Blogging Buddies!

~Peace out~

<~ Scratch~>