Any road will take you there.

Midway through his first semester in college, my nephew has decided that the academic scene just isn't for him; at least, not right now.

He needs time to clear his head, and I support him completely. I know he's in for a veritable shitstorm of awkward questions and snide remarks from friends pretending to have their lives completely together. Still, he made a brave choice to pack it in before he wasted any more time or money, and, being a talented kid with a solid base of support, he'll be just fine, wherever he ends up.

Thinking about my friends and family--more specifically, thinking about where they were when they were 19 years old--he's on familiar ground. I can't think of a single individual I know who is now doing what they were or even what they were thinking about doing at that age.

Case in point: when I was his age, I was in my second year of astronaut training. I was convinced that I was going to be the first man on Mars-an opinion shared by most of upper management at NASA. I was on the aeronautic fast track until the fateful day I went to Alpine Valley and saw the Grateful Dead. The next morning, I turned in my flightsuit for tie-dye and sandals. In one long jam, I had gone from the next Buzz Aldrin to the next Perpetually Buzzed. Blame it on Garcia. 

And looking back, do I regret my decision? Hell no. I mean, are we any closer to landing on Mars?

Didn't think so.

So there you go. The kid will be allright. As George Harrison said shortly before shuffling off this mortal coil, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."

Hare Krishna.

Heckuva job, Brownie.....

Thanks to the gargantuan clusterfuck that has accompanied efforts to distribute the swine flu vaccine, I find myself in a scarcely controlled state of panic every morning as I send my children out to swim in the festering petri dish that is the public schools.

Miles received (what turned out to be half) his vaccination last night. His congenital heart defect served as the golden ticket to get him on the approved list of that micro-fraction of the population who now qualify for the right to fight tooth and nail to receive one of the precious doses.

That was the good news. The bad news is, because of his age, he needs a second dose in about a month to be fully vaccinated. And it's anyone's guess if there will be any vaccinations available then. I can honestly picture myself paying cash for an illicit dose in some back alley, as the recent Milwaukee hijacking suggests a burgeoning blackmarket in H1N1 vaccine can't be too far off.

We've heard an awful lot of excuses as to why, after a year of forecasts and preparation, there's simply not enough vaccine to go around. Personally, I don't think the blame goes much further than the boardrooms of the big pharmaceutical companies, where dull eyed fat cats scoffed mightily at the idea of reducing their profit margins just to respond to a national health crisis. After all, why settle for pennies-on-the-dollar producing flu vaccines if it means diverting resources from pumping out those magic moneymaking elixirs for restless leg syndrome or erectile dysfunction?

Alas, wiggly legs and limp dicks will be the least of anyone's worries when half the population perishes from the plague (significantly reducing Big Pharma's customer base.) My guess though is that most of those same executives have already been vaccinated and will thus be happily, and healthily, cashing their bonus checks (albeit with a murky conscience) while the rest of us bury our dead.

Until then, I'll go on with my daily ritual of painting my front door with lambs blood and anointing the children's heads with holy oil to ward off the sickness demons. On the plus side, my Purell stock has shot up in value, and I'm designing a line of day-glo surgical masks which I expect to make quite a splash. Who knows-maybe on the free market front I'll come out of this as a player as well!

I just hope I live to cash the checks.

A Quick Note on the Vampires

I live in a small town about 20 miles southwest of anywhere you've probably ever heard of. It's a place full of cutesy little charms, shops and neighbors and church festivals and gossip. Mine is a ramshackle, aged farmhouse, perched on what was once the end of town proper but sitting now a stones throw from the McMansions that stand in for progress in a place like this.

Friends who visit never fail to be charmed by the "aw-shucks" aura of our surroundings. It's like the spirit of old Norm Rockwell hisself oozes up and out of the cobblestone pedestrian walkways, infecting everyone with dewy nostalgia simply because there isn't a Starbucks or a Pottery Barn within eyeshot. Here, folks look you in the eye and greet you with a kindly "hello." Here, folks remember your first name.

Which would all be pretty bucolic if it weren't for the goddamned vampires.

Oh, we've got nothing against diversity, though truth be told, there's not a whole lot of it to be found out here. Among our 6,000 or so residents are about 5,800 direct descendants of Norway. I'm a brunette, which on an average day makes me stand out like a gangsta rapper among the flaxen headed denizens of Main Street.

Still, it makes us all a little nervous when, just after sundown, those ashen faced ghouls slink out into town. I tried being friendly at first, tried greeting 'em with a smile and a sincere "how's it goin'?" I mean, hell, they're neighbors, and just because they feast on the blood of the innocent doesn't give me some high and mighty right to judge.

But I'm surely not a glutton for punishment, and after three or four times of just getting a cold, glassy eyed stare in return for my kindness, I have to admit, I turned the cold shoulder right back on them. Hell, I could walk right over one of those God forsaken creatures as they scramble after a cat or a squirrel for a snack now, and I wouldn't give 'em the time of day. No sir.

Now I suppose I should stop here and tell you a thing or two relative to what these people are really like. Again, I hate to judge, and I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble, but these are not the pretty, teenaged vampires that are all the rage nowadays in your popular culture. No. These are what I guess you would call your traditional vampires--that is, tuxedo and cape clad, widows-peaked and speaking with a damned lisp in some sort of thick eastern European accent. In other words, the last guy you want to get behind in the checkout line over to the Kwik Trip when he's lilting his way through the numbers he wants on his Megabucks play and the 17-year old kid behind the counter has absolutely not a clue what he's saying.

Oh, and needless to say, good luck finding garlic anywhere within three counties these days. My kids won't even eat my spaghetti since these children of the night appeared on the scene. Too bland, they say. Too bland. Like it's my fault.

That aside, though, it's a right friendly little place to live. We can step out and see the stars at night, and in a few weeks, we'll all gather in the middle of town for the lighting of the village Christmas tree. The community band will play, we'll drink hot cider and talk about how, well, we might have vampires but at least we don't have the blacks.