Being a Drama Queen is more a matter of philosophy than biology.

When it comes to sex — skin and bones are for the dog; the meat and fat, for the man.

After eating the brains of an honor student, the zombie will be no smarter.

Is running away and joining the circus still a thing?

To look at it on a map, it doesn’t seem all that long, but to actually put an oar in the river…well that became a whole other thing. Laughlin, Nevada is hot and larger than one might think and very few of her citizen’s are interested in helping anyone simply hiking through, which was the nature of my business as I told the two separate police pairs.

My main interest was to make it to Lake Havasu. The problem was – I really didn’t have any idea where that was. I jus’ knew that I was en route that way and that this was where my journey had taken me.

As I sat on the bank of the Colorado River, being unimpressed by its not-so-mighty power and flow, I managed to gather the ire of a drunk guy and his wife. He began throwing rocks at me and yelling that I was spying him and his wife.

Needless to say I vamoosed and made myself scarce. Unfortunately for me, I returned that evening and discovered he’d left his Coleman canoe on the river’s bank and I willfully stole the damn thing.

Why I initially did this – I cannot explain. But it lead me to an adventure that I never dreamed of doing – attempting to paddle down the Colorado River to the U.S./Mexico border. How hard could that be, right? Right.

I put in behind Harrah’s Casino about 100 feet from where the canoe had been left and paddled out towards the middle of the stream and discovered the current was much swifter than it looked. Before I knew it, I was splashing my way beneath Highway 40 as the sun began to come up.

The river offered me a freedom I hadn’t felt in sometime. I grew up near the banks of the Klamath River in northern California and had become land-locked, living in the high desert, so I’d forgotten the feel of the water as it lapped at the sides of the canoe.

All that day, I paddled and drifted intermittently, trying to get my muscles used to the effort. At first, I thought it would be my arms that would be the greatest problem, but it turns out my shoulders and eventually my rib-cage and stomach muscles bore the brunt of the effort.

After six or seven hour, I put ashore where I clumsily dragged my ill-gotten canoe into the brush, rolled out my sleeping bag and fell asleep without eating. It was still dark when I awoke the following morning and began to question my decision to try such a foolish thing.

“Do I or don’t I?” my inner voice argued, “No one will ever know that you didn’t make it. No shame in that.”

It was the words, ‘didn’t make it,’ that goaded me to my feet. Instantly, I knew I had to continue because I hadn’t really tried and all I knew was that aside from hurting like hell, trying and failing is a lot better than never giving the effort in the first place.

Quietly, I went to work building a small camp fire and boiling water for a mess of rice and beans. Coffee, I decided would have to wait until later as I didn’t want to waste a bunch of time in an area that I was totally unfamiliar with. No sense in attracting anymore attention than necessary, after all I was piloting a stolen canoe.

The truck pulled into the store’s parking lot and I hopped out of the bed. The couple waved as they returned to the highway and then made a sharp left off the pavement and onto a dirt road that disappeared somewhere in the radiating waves of heat.

With my rucksack on one shoulder, I adjusted my ratted-out cowboy hat and wandered over to the shade of the building. It was afternoon and more than hot, that much I could tell, but I wasn’t sure if I were in Arizona or New Mexico.

Off to one side of the store, which was a modern adobe style design, was a tee-pee and an open air-shack beyond it. The tee-pee looked terribly out-of-place as it was more appropriate for the plains-area than the desert, the woman inside the shack was cooking what smelled to be fry-bread.

Sitting inside the flapped doorway of the tee-pee was an older man. He was dark-skinned and his eye appeared to be dark and piercing, but not menacing.

He watched me as I watched him. Then he waved at me to come over and I did.

“Hello, have you traveled far?” he asked

I told him, “From Nevada.”

“Where are you headed?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Daughter,” he called towards the back of the shelter, “Bring our guest some bread. He’s traveled a long way to see us.”

I looked down at the rug under our feet instead of saying what I thought: “Buddy, you got the wrong idea about me – I’m lost and have no idea where I’m going.”

With a smile the woman I’d seen in the shack appeared. She had two large pieces of fry-bread wrapped in paper towels. She gave one to the Elder and the other to me before she disappeared.

“You think I’m crazy, no?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I answered.

He laughed, “At least you’re honest. Most Anglo’s aren’t, afraid they’ll hurt my feelings.”

“Well, the tee-pee kinda has me puzzled,” I replied.

He chuckled, “Tourist see a tee-pee and they think authentic Indian.”

“Good point,” I nodded, “A wikiup doesn’t have the same appeal, I guess.”

We both laughed as we each ate our bread, chewing in silence.

“You are here to hear my story,” he stated, breaking my revery,  “You see, I’m the great-grandson of Geronimo and I’m selling authentic reproductions of his likeness to raise money to get him back to where he belongs – with his people, with his land, under our sky.”

I sat quietly, not asking any questions, knowing the custom of not speaking until the older man finished talking.

“First they took great-grand dad from this land, his land, in a long train to Florida. Then the Anglo soldiers moved him to Oklahoma where he died, never seeing his home again. It was while at Fort Sill, in what was then called the Indian Territory, that he had this photograph taken.”

He held up a 4-by-6 sepia-toned picture of the Apache war chief holding a cowboy revolver, before adding, “Geronimo sold these to supplement what rations the Army gave the prisoners. After his death, someone stole his bones and they are now being held hostage by Yale, you know, the university.”

He took another bite of his Indian Bread and looked far off into the distance. It was a silent signal that my time to speak had come.

“Honestly, I had no idea I was coming here to learn this,” I said. “I’m jus’ trying to find my sanity and I don’t even have a pot to piss in, let alone the money to buy a picture from you.”

The idea of being broke at that moment left me defeated. I didn’t like it.

“No,” he replied, “You aren’t here to buy – you came to listen. What you are searching for cannot be bought and it cannot be sold. You will know and it will know you when you meet – that’s how I knew you were here to hear me speak of my great-grandfather without condition.”

We sat in silence for the next few minutes, eating our bread, staring at some far distant and as of yet unseen spot on the horizon.

Poor Thomas’ Almanac for December 18: In 1719, Thomas Fleet published “Mother Goose’s Melodies For Children.” We’re still waiting for the Kanye West album to drop.

Before I drink almond milk, someone needs to show me the teets on a nut.

Remember that sound your father’s belt made as he ripped it from his loops, intent on giving you a whipping? Believe me — not a good time to pants him and run.