Yep. I’m walkin’, boss.

I was supposed to wait until next Wednesday before casting the final crutch aside, but, as Erin so charmingly phrases it, I said “Eff it!” on Friday evening.

I’m overjoyed, in my usual ambivalent way. Walking is cool, and if you haven’t done it lately, I encourage you to give it a try.

So far nothing has snapped. However, if the zombie plague hits soon, and it’s fast zombies instead of slow zombies, I’m screwed. Not only will I fail to get away, but after I get bitten all the other zombies will have snarfed up all the good brains before I can catch up with them.

I hobble around like a very old man. It’s a challenge to limp on both legs at once — because my left leg is pretty messed up, too, from not having been part of a functioning partnership for far too long. Both legs are weak and hurt alarmingly in places they shouldn’t. I don’t think I’m doing any further damage; I think it’s part of the rehab process.

I remember when I first encountered serious chronic pain, in my thirties, when my back gave me a bad decade before vertebral fusion. It was frightening. Pain is the thing that warns us that we’re gonna die if we don’t figure out some new behavior. And I couldn’t seem to figure out any.

I’m rather proud of my pain tolerance these days. Basically, my attitude is, “Yeah, it hurts like hell. Oh, well, whatcha gonna do?” If I absolutely need some meds to be able to function, then I take them. If not, I get about my business.

But the back of my brain still knows that the pain is a signal of worse to come if I’m stupid.

I’m eager to get back on my scooter. Partly because I’m deeply disenchanted with depending on others for my meeting my basic survival needs. (Thanks Megan and Martha and Troyce and JohnTim!)

Partly because I need to confront some issues. I don’t think I have any fear of the bike or of riding. But I’m paranoid that I may have a bad reflex implanted in the back of my brain. I really don’t want to break that leg again any time soon.

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I’ve been house-sitting all weekend, so am just now making the effort to create my posts for the weekend. I don’t have a vid for you in this one, but do have a link to a music stream that I’m listening to as we write.

As I’ve mentioned before, Texas music from the mid-to-late-Sixties feels right to me on a cellular level. Back then, radio stations were owned locally, and they often had dj’s who were in love with music and they made up their own playlists, and supported local acts. A lot of music got regionally popular, and was good, without necessarily breaking out nationally.

Texas certainly had its share of national acts, but you’ve never even heard of some of the good local ones if you didn’t grow up listening to them on Texas radio. Click the pic to hear some of that stuff.

There are two separate streams, and there’s some great seminal Texas rock in them.

A couple to watch out for are Fever Tree, and the Moving Sidewalks, which is the band where Billy Gibbons practiced his chops.

We also have the Chessmen, which was led by Jimmie Vaughan. I’ve always felt like a moron for never having gone to see Stevie Ray when he was alive. But, when I was researching this post a few weeks ago, I came across a cool nugget of info.

I saw the Chessmen several times, mostly at the old Catacombs club off of S. Post Oak. And the true history is that Stevie used to sit in with his big brother’s band. It brightened my world up considerably to realize that I may well have seen baby Stevie Ray play, after all!

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