The Old Blog in the Desert

We wanted to be adults so bad. I mean, who doesn’t remember those wide-eyed dreams of independence—the freedom to eat cereal for dinner, stay up late, and buy all the soda we wanted without anyone telling us “no”? We thought adulthood was a ticket to the good life. Now look at us: stressed, broke, tired, and downright excited when the laundry’s folded.

There I was the other morning, standing in front of the washer and dryer, feeling a curious kind of triumph. Buddy was nearby, sprawled out, giving me the look of someone who wasn’t sure if he should celebrate or hope I’d share some of that freshly folded sock magic.

You see, laundry is one of those chores that sneaks up on you, especially when you’re juggling work, family, and the constant hum of everyday life. It piles up faster than you expect, and suddenly you’re staring down a mountain of shirts, socks, and whatever that mystery sock-less sock was doing under the couch.

But this time, instead of grumbling like I usually do, I paused. I took satisfaction in crossing that task off my list.

It wasn’t just about clean clothes—it was a small victory in a day that otherwise felt a bit out of control. I found myself smiling at the simple rhythm of life—sort, wash, dry, fold.

It felt oddly grounding.

Later that night, I poured myself a glass of straight whiskey—not the polite little sips, but the kind that warms your bones and clears your mind a bit. Buddy gave me the side-eye, wondering why humans make things so complicated.

I told him, “Sometimes, buddy, it’s the little things. A clean shirt, a full tank of gas, a good dog by your side—that’s what keeps the wheels turning.”

Then, I thought about how many of us are chasing things—better jobs, bigger houses, more stuff. And in that chase, we forget to celebrate the small wins, the quiet moments where things are working just enough for us to breathe a little easier.

The solution, I realized, isn’t to sweat every little stressor or dream up some grand overhaul of life. No, it’s about breaking the day down to manageable pieces. Like laundry: don’t let it pile up until it’s a mountain. Wash a load. Fold a load. Celebrate it. Then do it again tomorrow.

I know it sounds simple, but sometimes simple is what we need. I shared this thought with a friend the next day, someone who was feeling overwhelmed by work and family demands. He laughed and said, “Tom, maybe I need to start folding my laundry with a little more joy.”

That’s the spirit. Life’s not going to slow down for us. The bills, the meetings, the endless to-do list—they’ll keep coming. But if we can find little anchors—small victories to remind us we’re handling it—it makes the weight lighter.

So, when you face that next chore, the annoying task, try seeing it as a small win rather than just a thing to get over with. Celebrate the little victories—clean laundry, a hot cup of coffee, a smile from your dog or a friend.

Those are the moments that build a life worth living. And if that feels like too much today, then start with folding your socks, pouring yourself a real drink, or telling your dog he’s the best.

Tomorrow, try another.

We wanted to be adults, alright, but maybe being an adult means learning how to celebrate the small stuff. And that’s not so bad after all.

Buddy and I tried to sit out on the porch this morning, but we didn’t make it far past the first cup of coffee. The air was so thick with smoke you could chew it. I swear it smelled like somebody had tossed a wet pine log on the world’s biggest campfire.

Now, I grew up in places where the summer sky was supposed to smell like hayfields, barbecue, and maybe the occasional whiff of cow. But here we were, sitting there with our eyes watering, looking like we were crying over a country song, and all because some fella thought it was a fine day to grind metal in the middle of a tinderbox.

Don’t get me wrong, I know accidents happen. Still, I can’t help but think there’s a kind of common sense that says, “Maybe don’t throw sparks around when the grass crunches under your boots.”

It’s the same brand of common sense that tells you not to fry bacon shirtless or poke a sleeping rattlesnake with a stick. Simple rules. Life-saving rules.

The Rancho Haven Fire was chewing up 1,400 acres by the time I poured my second cup of coffee. Crews had stopped forward progress, thank the Lord, but it was still burning hot and heavy.

There are 175 fire personnel and a whole squadron of aircraft out there, beating back the flames. That’s 175 families waiting at home, praying, while their loved ones were out doing battle with a fire armed with nothing more than courage, sweat, a Pulaski, and maybe a shovel.

I don’t need to imagine what kind of grit it takes to run toward fire when the rest of us are running the other way. I worked the line for two seasons back in the early ’90s.

When I looked over at Buddy, he had his bandana around his nose like some outlaw who got lost on the way to a train robbery. His eyes were half-shut from the smoke, but he wasn’t about to go back inside.

That dog has the stubborn loyalty of a mule in boots. I reckon if the fire ever got too close, Buddy’d stand guard with the garden hose while I packed the car.

We sat there listening to the planes overhead. You don’t know how comforting the sound of a helicopter can be until you hear it carrying water instead of tourists. Every thump of those blades sounded like a promise, “We got this. Hang tight.”

Now, Buddy doesn’t understand much about acreage or containment percentages, but he does know when I’m worried. He pressed against my leg, looked up at me with those eyes that say, “It’s alright, boss.” And right then, I figured he was right. Worrying wasn’t going to help the fire crews one bit. All I could do was pray for their safety, keep the coffee hot, and maybe be ready to lend a hand if neighbors needed it.

The truth is, living out here means you accept certain risks. Wildfires are one of them.

You keep your grass trimmed, clear your brush, and stay ready to load up the important things—family, pets, photos, and maybe that one cast-iron skillet that’s seasoned better than most people’s marriages.

But you also learn that neighbors will show up with trailers, casseroles, and chainsaws the minute you need them. It’s the unspoken pact of country living.

By the time I finished my coffee, I decided to move us back inside, where the air didn’t sting so bad. Buddy followed, grumbling about giving up his porch watch.

I promised him we’d be back out there as soon as the air cleared, and maybe I’d even grill us up some burgers. He perked up at that.

Funny thing about fire—it can scare the daylights out of you, but it also reminds you what matters most. People, pets, home, and a good cup of coffee to steady your nerves.

Everything else is smoke in the wind. So we’ll sit tight, say our prayers for the crews out there, and keep an eye on the horizon.

And when the sky finally clears, Buddy and I will go right back to the porch, coffee in hand, grateful for the simple gift of clean air.

I was out on the back porch yesterday afternoon, sipping a cold beer and throwing the ball for Buddy, when it hit me—not the ball, thankfully, but the absurdity of it all. We own our home.

At least, that’s what the paperwork says. The deed’s in our name, the mortgage is up to date, the fence, the flowerbeds, and the creaky screen door—ours.

We built half of it and cursed at the other half while maintaining it. And yet, every year, the county sends us a little love note, politely reminding us that if we don’t hand over a few thousand dollars in property taxes, they’ll take it all away.

I showed that bill to Buddy. He sniffed it once, sneezed, and wandered off to roll in something unholy.

I know taxes keep the lights on—the roads paved, schools open, emergency services ready. But it’s an odd feeling, knowing you can spend a lifetime working for something, finally call it yours, and still have to rent it back from the government.

Doesn’t feel like ownership. Feels like a hostage negotiation.

I got to thinking about my granddad, who built his house board by board. The man could make anything out of nothing.

A pair of sawhorses, a handsaw, and his own two hands. The house was his pride.

But even he had to scrape together money for taxes every year, right up until the day he died. My dad said it best, standing in front of that house at the funeral, “Turns out, you never really own land. You just lease it from the ones with guns and pens.”

That’s a bitter truth, but I don’t want to stay bitter. I’ve got better things to do, like trimming the lawn or brewing a fresh pot of coffee for whoever wanders by.

So, what’s a fella supposed to do?

Well, I figure if we can’t change the rules overnight, maybe we can change the way we play the game. Some of my neighbors have started setting aside a little envelope labeled “Property Ransom”—their words, not mine—where they drop a few bucks every week.

It’s small stuff—skip a burger here, skip a beer there. And just like that, by the time the tax man comes calling, the money’s already waiting, tucked away like emergency chocolate in the back of the pantry.

We’ve started doing it too, with the added incentive that if we come in under budget, we get to spend the leftovers on something fun. Now, I’m not saying that makes it right, but it does make it easier.

So here’s our challenge to you: find one thing you can do today that makes tomorrow just a little more secure. It doesn’t have to be big.

It could be dropping coins in a jar or planting tomatoes instead of buying them. It could be writing a letter to your local rep and asking, kindly but firmly, “Why am I paying rent on something I already own?”

And if all else fails, grab a beer, throw the ball, and tell the dog your troubles. He may not answer, but he won’t judge you either.

As I get older, I’m trying my best to live my life in a way that “feral” gets used in my obituary.

Now, I don’t mean feral like biting folks or rooting through trash cans—though I admit there was a stretch in my twenties that could have gone either way. What I mean is the kind of feral that makes people at my funeral raise their eyebrows and nod slowly, like, “Yeah, that tracks.”

There’s something beautiful about that word. It says, “He didn’t go quietly.”

It hints at barefoot mornings, shirtless yardwork, and the kind of man who might’ve hollered at the moon once or twice to see if it hollered back. A man who didn’t shave for church, not out of rebellion, but because he forgot there was church.

Now, I wake up and do whatever I want, so long as it doesn’t require a password or pants with a button. There’s a freedom in that.

Dogs understand. My Buddy—half German Shorthair, half question mark—knows exactly what I mean. He doesn’t wear pants or obey instructions unless treats are involved, and no one’s ever called him anything but a good boy.

I like to think I’ve earned the right to be a little unpredictable. After all, I paid my taxes, raised a son, loved one woman consistently, and never backed into another vehicle—on purpose.

Surely the Good Lord grants some leeway to those of us who survived dial-up internet and rotary phones. I have no interest in growing old gracefully. I want to slide into my golden years sideways, coffee in one hand, whiskey in the other, covered in dog hair and slightly sunburnt.

The trouble is, feral folks don’t leave behind neat filing cabinets or organized garages. No, we leave behind mystery keys and unlabeled cords that look important but aren’t.

We have spice racks filled with expired potions and canned goods so old they remember Y2K. My son will one day sort through my belongings and say, “Why did Dad have a drawer full of single screws and one roller skate?”

Because, son. That’s the kind of man I was.

I once tried to explain this to a young friend who asked what my “retirement goals” were. I told him I was working on my obituary.

That, and I hoped it would contain at least one tale of mild trespassing, a feral chicken, and something about a hot tub not belonging to me. The kid blinked at me, then blinked again.

Look, not everyone’s cut out for the straight-and-narrow. Some of us wander a bit.

Not lost—just on a different trail. Mine has fewer road signs and more squirrel crossings, but it gets me where I need to go, eventually.

Besides, the detours always have better stories.

When the time comes, I don’t want folks to say, “He was a good man.”

That’s fine, sure. But I’d prefer, “He was a handful.”

I want someone to shake their head at my photo and mutter, “That rascal.”

I want there to be laughter through the tears and maybe a small fire in the backyard for old times’ sake.

And when they get to the part about who I was, I hope some brave soul leans into the mic, clears their throat, and says, “Tom Darby didn’t pass away. He just wandered off. Feral to the end.”

One of my wife’s friends—let’s call her Kim, because that is her name—once asked Mary, “How did you meet Tom?”

Now, Mary didn’t blink. She didn’t crack a smile or offer up one of those polite chuckles folks use when they’re buying time to tell the truth gently. Nope.

With a face so flat and serious it could’ve passed for a pancake on Ash Wednesday, she said, “He burned me at the stake in 1642, and I swore revenge in another lifetime.”

And I’d like to point out—because I feel this is important—neither one of them had been drinking at the time.

Kim just sat there blinking, probably wondering if she ought to Google “reincarnated witch revenge” or call for backup. I sipped my coffee like I hadn’t just gotten accused of witch-burning in mixed company.

Mary carried on like she hadn’t just implied we were locked in some cosmic payback loop. It was, all things considered, one of the most romantic things she’d ever said about me.

Now, it’s not entirely far-fetched. I do tend to light fires.

Campfires, mostly, sometimes, our barbecue grill, and once, I tried to start a fire in the fireplace without opening the flue, and I ended up smoking out the living room so badly that the dog hid in the bathtub. Historically, I have had a complicated relationship with flames.

But I never burned anybody, not even in a metaphorical sense, unless you count overcooked toast or forgetting our anniversary that one time. But to be fair, I didn’t forget, I just misremembered it by 24 hours, which doesn’t qualify as “close enough” when you’re married.

Still, there’s something oddly comforting about the idea that Mary and I have been at this for centuries. I picture us back then—her with a pointy hat, me with a torch and pitchfork—only to end up here, sitting across from each other, arguing over whether the thermostat should be at “warm” or “desert inferno.”

You have to admit, it puts things in perspective. That dishwasher argument we had last week? Probably just a continuation of something we started long ago.

The way she always knows when I’ve had one too many Cowboy Coolaids? It could be centuries of practice.

And her uncanny ability to remember every dumb thing I’ve ever said? After a few lifetimes of mistakes, they can pile up.

Truth is, though, I wouldn’t mind if it were all true. If the whole ride—this long, strange loop we call love—is just another go-round between the same two souls trying to figure each other out, then I must’ve done something right. Even if that something involved kindling.

We never did explain the joke to Kim. She left with that unsettled look folks get after a ghost tour or a family reunion. But Mary winked at me when the door closed behind her, and I thought, Maybe I did burn her at the stake in 1642.

But if I did, she sure got the better end of the deal this time. I take out the trash, I rub her feet when it rains, and she’s got the Wi-Fi password.

If that ain’t karmic balance, I don’t know what is.

It turns out that when my supervisor, Elizabeth, said, “You can be irritating,” she wasn’t giving me her permission. That took me a couple of days to figure out—well, more like a week if I’m honest, but I like to round down when it comes to personal shortcomings.

Now, in my defense, the tone she used was misleading. A firm-but-smiling, schoolmarm tone that could’ve gone either way.

I thought it was one of those playful acknowledgments—like when someone says, “You’re a handful,” and you respond with, “Yes, but I’m your handful,” and they laugh and toss a pen at your head.

But no. It was not one of those moments.

See, I had been testing the limits of workplace patience. Nothing drastic.

I wasn’t showing up in flip-flops or replacing the coffee with decaf–I’m not a monster, but I had been entertaining myself by rearranging her sticky notes when she wasn’t looking.

I’d take the yellow ones and mix them in with the pink ones. Alphabetize them by word count.

One time, I even swapped her “Call John at 3” note with “Buy more goat cheese,” just to see if she’d notice. Spoiler: She did.

Anyway, she caught me mid-stick one afternoon, holding a pink note like it was a classified file, and that’s when she said it. “Tom, you can be irritating.”

And I, ever the optimist, replied, “I can be irritating? Excellent! Just wanted to make sure I still had it.”

She didn’t laugh. Not even a smirk. That’s when it hit me—I had mistaken a declaration of fact for a green light.

So I did what any halfway self-aware grown man would do–I remained low for a bit. Stopped with the sticky notes, cut back on the sarcastic commentary, and tried to channel my energy into more constructive outlets.

Like labeling the break room condiments. Did you know there’s an ongoing debate over whether the ketchup belongs on the top shelf or the door of the fridge?

I do now. I’ve seen the emails.

After a while, Elizabeth started smiling at me again. Not the “I’m documenting this for HR” smile, but the genuine kind—the one that says, “You’re still a handful, but at least you’re a quieter one now.”

I never brought up the sticky notes again, and neither did she. It became an unspoken truce, the kind that keeps the office running smoothly and our coffee pot filled.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere—something about reading between the lines, or maybe about how permission and tolerance are not the same thing. But if I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that life has a funny way of teaching you these lessons twice–once with words, and again with silence.

And if nothing else, at least I now know that when someone says, “You can be irritating,” the correct response is not, “Thank you.”

I don’t know when it happened, exactly—somewhere between growing up and growing old—but there came a day when I realized I was editing my thoughts before they ever had a chance to see daylight. Not for clarity, not for decency, not even to avoid the occasional foot-in-mouth moment, which I’ve honed into a bit of an art form—but to keep someone else from feeling bad that I might’ve had a point.

I was standing in line at the grocery store not too long ago, the kind of line that wraps around a display of birthday balloons and lukewarm rotisserie chickens. A man in front of me, mid-40s, was arguing with the self-checkout machine as if it owed him child support.

He kept jabbing at the screen, mumbling something about “right-wing technology.” Now, I could’ve told him that the self-checkout wasn’t plotting against him—just asking him to place the item in the bagging area, but I stayed quiet.

Because saying something—even something helpful—might’ve bruised his tender worldview. And Lord knows, the last thing we want to do these days is rattle someone who already suspects the barcode scanner is part of a surveillance plot.

I miss common sense. I do. I miss people who could take a joke without filing a grievance. I miss when knowing something meant you might have to explain it, not apologize for it. And I miss having a conversation where the goal was understanding—not who could cry foul first.

I used to believe that intelligence would always have its say, even if it had to wait its turn. But lately, intelligence has had to sit in the back of the room with its hands folded while nonsense rides shotgun and sings off-key.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I’m no Einstein. I once spent a full ten minutes trying to plug a USB drive upside down, twice. And yet, I know the difference between a fact and a feeling, but it’s hard to share one without stepping on the other.

Even writing this, I feel like I need to tiptoe across each sentence, in case someone with a degree in being offended finds my opinion too pointed. But there comes a time—usually after your second cup of cowboy coolaid and a good long sigh—when you realize that wisdom kept quiet too long starts to feel like cowardice.

So, yes—I’m tired. Tired of pretending I don’t know what I know. Tired of watching smart folks play dumb so that dumb folks can feel smart. And tired of acting like the truth is only valuable if it’s sugarcoated, gift-wrapped, and delivered with an apology.

From now on, I’ll keep being kind—but I’m going to let my thoughts finish a sentence without duct tape over their mouth. If that offends someone, they’ll survive. After all, people used to survive by being told they were wrong. Heck, sometimes it even helped’em grow.

Imagine that.

Back in high school, I took Mrs. Doris Whalen’s English class for a very strategic reason: she was the only teacher left who didn’t actively flinch when she saw my name on her roll sheet. I’d already worked my way through the rest of the department like a slow-moving wildfire—one bad joke, one unfinished assignment, one poorly timed burp at a time. Mrs. Whalen, bless her patient soul, greeted me with a smile and what I can only describe as cautious optimism.

Now, Mrs. Whalen had a fondness for writing assignments, the kind that required structure and thought and a serious tone. I had a fondness for none of those things. But I was also trying to stay on her good side, so when she handed me a 500-word project on Medusa, the Greek mythological figure with a snake-hairdo, I decided to take it seriously.

Well, mostly seriously.

I did the research. I filled four note cards with facts. I even used the school library, which, if you know me at age seventeen, is an impressive level of commitment. I crafted an essay complete with transitions, supporting evidence, and a conclusion that tied everything up in a neat bow.

Then I gave it a title.

“Medusa: Making Men Hard Since 700 BC.”

To this day, I maintain it was clever. I meant “hard” as in “turned to stone.” Literal. Accurate. Historically rooted.

It’s not my fault the phrase also lived in the adult humor section of my brain. Honestly, I thought Mrs. Whalen might chuckle.

She did not chuckle.

What she did was call me to her desk and hold up the paper with two fingers, as if it were slightly toxic. “Thomas,” she said, and any time a teacher used my full name, I knew I was halfway to detention, “this is well-written. Structured. Thoughtful. Even cited properly.”

I beamed. I think I even straightened up a little, ready for that rarest of high school events—a compliment.

Then she flipped the page so I could see the big red D- scrawled in the corner.

“For the title,” she said, as if I hadn’t read it myself. “You knew better.”

I did know better, but I couldn’t help myself.

There’s a thrill in skating the edge of what you can get away with, and I’d been skating my whole academic career. Titles were like bait, and I was always fishing for a reaction.

That was the last time Mrs. Whalen smiled when she saw me coming, though she did let me rewrite the paper—new title, identical content—and I squeaked out a B. I called it The Tragedy of Medusa, which was okay, if uninspired.

These days, I try to be more careful with my words. But now and then, I’ll glance at a headline I’ve written and think, “Too far?” Then I think of Mrs. Whalen’s face and answer myself, “Probably.”

Still, I like to believe that somewhere deep down, buried under years of grading papers and attending teacher conferences, Mrs. Whalen told that story once or twice at a dinner party. Maybe even chuckled, just once, when no one was looking.

When Mary and I were newlyweds, we didn’t have a whole lot—not much in the way of furniture or savings or good sense—but we had each other, and that seemed like more than enough most days. We were in that spot between poor and blissful, and dinners often came out of a box labeled “just add water.”

Love was simple then. So were the meals.

Now, Mary had a friend named Beth, who, bless her heart, had a nose for trouble and a mouth just fast enough to get herself into it. She was the kind of woman who could find tension in a bubble bath. Beth came by one afternoon with what she called “concerning news,” which is never a good start to any conversation.

“I saw Tom,” she said, her voice all hushed and dramatic like she was about to reveal a state secret. “He was talking to that redhead at the post office. Laughing. Flirting.”

Mary barely looked up from folding laundry. She gave a little smile, not the least bit bothered. “Let him,” she said. “I wanna see how long he can suck in his stomach.”

Beth blinked like she hadn’t expected that answer. She probably thought there’d be yelling, accusations, maybe some dramatic throwing of dishware. But instead, she got Mary, who had all the serenity of a cat in the shade and knew her husband better than any busybody ever would.

Now, I didn’t know any of this until years later. Mary told me the story after Beth had long since drifted out of our lives, probably off to find someone else’s marriage to diagnose. I laughed so hard I nearly dropped my coffee.

“You really said that?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “Well, you do puff up when you’re trying to be charming.”

And she’s not wrong. I’ve never been one for gyms or jogging or anything that makes me sweat on purpose, but I do have a bad habit of tightening everything up when I’m trying to make a good impression. I call it posture. Mary calls it wishful thinking.

But what got me about that story—what still makes me smile whenever I think about it—wasn’t just the punchline. It was the trust behind it.

Mary knew me. Knew my heart.

She knew I wasn’t out there playing fast and loose with our vows. And even if I had been dumb enough to try, she had faith that my abs would give out before my conscience did.

That kind of trust is rarer than gold. It’s built in quiet moments, over burnt toast and evening walks and those long talks when the power goes out.

You can’t fake it, and you sure can’t force it. Mary had it from day one. She was secure, not because I was perfect, but because she understood the difference between harmless banter and something worth worrying over.

Beth never tattled again after that. I think she realized there wasn’t much point in trying to rattle a woman who’d already decided to laugh at life’s little dramas.

And me? Well, I still puff out my chest now and then, mostly out of habit. But I do it for Mary, not for redheads at the post office.

And I’ve learned over time that love, real love, doesn’t need a six-pack. Just a belly full of laughter and a heart full of grace.