caveat emptor

Stoopid Geniuses, Bohemian Slackers and Toothless Bards

I can't decide if Lenny Kravitz is a dumbass or a genius. When I read things he's said, he seems a little like a silly poseur guy. His music, however, is occasionally awesome, and usually good. It doesn't take intelligence to create good music, I think. It's a different kind of genius that's made of emotion and soul and intuition and touch and style. Sometimes a musical genius is also extremely intelligent, but this is not always beneficial to the music. It can be detrimental. I think this is very true.

The saxophone player from one of my favorite local bands, Confusatron, is now a barrista at the downtown Starbucks Coffee. I remember when Confusatron was born in the coffee shop that used to be where the Starbucks is now. I remember seeing the saxophone player meet the bass player. I remember all the drummers they've been through. I remember the strange, retarded, little mutt dog that used to run into the window after whom the band was named. I love bohemian slackers of a certain ilk, I really do.

Dr. One Tooth sits on the corner, plays an old acoustic guitar and wails old country songs. He strums simple chords in a plodding rhythm and bellows the lyrics. It's not really pleasant, but it's technically on key. Sometimes people will tip him or even stop and listen. Sometimes he surprises me and throws in a song that just doesn't fit his style or typical repertoire. The other day, as I walked by, he was singing the 4 Non Blondes song What's Up. He made it his own, which was a little sad but impressive nonetheless.

Today's topic is music. Tell me something.

Later. Love.

Scenery

The scenery along the tracks between Fort Worth and Dallas is often very beautiful. There are wide stretches of undeveloped land thick with trees. Leaves carpet the ground beneath the trees, and vines cover many of the trees like canopies.

In some places, the tracks are high and the ground beneath the trees falls away into shaded valleys. In some places, the tracks are low and layers of limestone and flaky sedimentary rock are exposed beside the tracks, with rivulets eroded into them by the runoff of hard rains.

The train passes a couple of ponds, one surrounded by tall, green cattail grass. There are always ducks in the ponds, and long-legged, long-winged white birds that I'm tempted to call cranes, but I really don't know what they're called.

The variety of leaves and bark always surprises me, and I can only name a few of the trees with any certainty: hackberry, mesquite, bald cypress, post oak, cottonwood, pecan. There are trees with ferny foliage and rough bark, covered in algae. There are scattered pine trees, but not many this far north and west. Some of the vines are honeysuckle, some are wild grape vines and some I cannot name.

I often describe North Texas to people as "not beautiful", and there is truth to that. Seeing this scenery, however, reminds me that this area has a kind of beauty, but it's a humble, unkempt beauty. It is not majestic or grand, like sea cliffs or mountain peaks or redwood forests. It's not the super model of American terrain. It's more like the cute girl who works at the supermarket, or the handsome, Marlboro-Man construction worker.

Have a lovely day, everyone. Tell me something.

Later. Love.

P.S. - I posted a piece on my cogito writing site. It's called Teleological. I like it. It's short. Read it and tell me what you think, unless you don't want to. Thanks for stopping by.

Drummer Boy

A freight train broke down on the tracks and delayed our commuter train indefinitely, so I decided to drive. As I detrained and headed for the car, I decided that I'd just telecommute for the day. So, I headed over to Panera Bread. Decent coffee, good food and free wireless, that's why.

As I sat there checking email and programming, I glanced up at the counter and saw a familiar face. He used to be our drummer in our church band. He, Drew and I once traveled to Matador, Texas to be the band for a week-long revival. It was a fun trip. He was a nice guy. I remember his wedding. They danced to the Modern English song I Melt With You (I love that song). She became an accountant and supported him through law school. When he was finished, she left him. Now he's a local defense attorney. I suspect he'll get into politics one day. Not your typical drummer, I guess.

He didn't see me, and I wasn't in the mood to talk, but it was good to see him. He looked happy.

Do you run into people from your past? If so, do you approach them, or just watch from a distance? I wonder why I always just sit back. Maybe it's because I'm such a different person now. How about you?

Later. Love.

P.S. - I posted a poem-like thing on my cogito writing site. It's called onward. I'll be honest, it's a little morose (The last one was boring and this one's morose. I should really fire my muse). Check it out, if you'd like to. Thanks for stopping by.

P.P.S. - Look, Todd Levin, from tremble.com, is going to be on television. Watch him. He is, I remind you, one of the good ones.

Facing Facts

I've run the numbers hundreds of times over the years, hoping to find a way to make it work, but it doesn't. It just doesn't work. So, I'm facing facts. In fact, as hard as it is, I'm going to say it here and now once and for all:

My plan to build a Superman-style Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole is financially and logistically impractical if not impossible. It's not ever going to happen.

There. Now I can get on with my life.

As soon as I stop sobbing.

Later. Love.

Gnowhere To Be Found

I'm a little concerned. I haven't seen Chuck around for a few weeks. Last weekend I sat outside and drank coffee for an hour and a half, hoping he'd show up. He didn't. I even went behind the shed and called his name quietly. Nothing. I hope everything's alright.

I haven't seen Puck since that first visit either. No little voices in the back yard. I wonder what's up.

Well, when I say I haven't seen Puck, that may not be true. I was in the bookstore a couple of weeks ago and I swore I saw Puck out of the corner of my eye, by the graphic novels. I walked over there and looked around, but I didn't see him again. Then, last week, in Lafayette, Louisiana, I could have sworn I saw, just for an instant, Puck sitting at the bar at Prejeans. It was across the restaurant, and I was on my second glass of Pinot, but I swear he was sitting there staring at me with this huge smile. I blinked, though, and he was gone.

Probably nothing. Probably just my mind playing tricks on me. Still, I keep getting this funny feeling that something's not right.

P.S. - I posted a story on my cogito writing site. It's called Diligence. It's a business story, and may be a little boring for 99.99% of the planet. Check it out, if you'd like to. Thanks for stopping by.

Holidays

So many symbols swirl in our collective consciousness at this time of the year. Some of them are deeply rooted in experience and others have been planted in the rich fertilizer spread thickly across the culture by advertisers. Nevertheless, they are as real as any thought, and I am enamored of the cumulative effect of them. I buy into the whole image, and it does its job: it warms my heart at this time of year. I like the decorations, the music, the lights and all the rest of it.

Fires in fire places were never a part of my upbringing, except in stories, movies and commercials. Nevertheless, I picture them this time of year. I've never traveled over the river and through the woods to get to anyone's house. We're suburb people. Thanksgiving for us meant trying to park eight cars in front of Grandpa's house without pissing off the neighbors who were trying to do the same. I've never been wassailing or caroling. Around here it would just annoy people, I'm afraid. When I look back at the traditions of my own childhood holidays, I don't see a Norman Rockwell painting. I know that the pilgrims and their Native American friends didn't watch the Dallas Cowboys crush the Washington Redskins.

Nevertheless, I embrace my family, past, present and future. The transition from being a student of tradition to being a teacher of tradition is not easy. Painfully you change from the child at your grandparents' house into the adult who brings your children to their grandparents' house and finally into the grandparents who bring your elderly parents and your children and their children into your house. I don't know what shape our traditions will take, but I can already see the place they have in our children's hearts. Our own fumbling attempts to make things special often seem so lame to us, but, through some miracle, our children believe them and embrace them and attach to them more fondness and nostalgia than they seem to deserve.

Norman Rockwell probably wouldn't have painted us, had he had a chance to come to our holiday celebrations, but he would have eaten a good meal and had a good conversation or two, maybe even a few laughs.

Hello, friends. Happy Holidays to you. Tell me how you're doing.

Later. Love.

An Oldie But... Well... an Oldie Anyway

I think I can only write on a train now. I've completely ruind myself as a non-train-riding writer. I'll have to become a hobo. I'll either have to retrain myself or retrain myself if I'm going to get any writing done.

So, I'm going to use the age-old cop out of bloggers throughout the centuries. I'm going to post something I wrote a long time ago, when the world was still young and innocent. I hope you enjoy it (this time).

==[ BEGIN TIME WARP ]==

Fallout (originally posted August 2004 on my cogito site.)

No one can explain it. It was supposed to be the end of the world. Instead, it was the anticlimax of human existence. I guess, as it turns out, we don’t have the ability to end to world in one fell blow. That should be a good thing, I know, but it seems to annoy most people a little. The scientists try to blame it on postmodernism, but that makes no sense at all. The laws of science should be immune to such things. The physicists are now claiming that quantum physics changed all that, and that the laws of nature have developed a sense of irony.

So, we all live on. It’s confusing. The leaders who ordered the launch of the missiles are in the unexpected and awkward position of having to apologize. It ended up not being that big a deal, but they didn’t know that. They intended to kill a lot of people. Jerks.

It’s hard to know what to do. I’m finding it harder to reengage in life than it was to give up on it. I’ve called in to work for the past two days, but I guess I should go in tomorrow. Life goes on, as weird as that is.

I think what bugs us, no pun intended, about the whole thing is that it smacks of capricious higher authority. I heard a few people talk about it a little in the coffee shop this morning, but no one has publicly admitted what we’re all thinking: some god, some higher order played a joke on us. Only the cockroaches? The people, the buildings, the plants, the animals...all fine. Unscathed. A loud noise, a bright flash, and dead cockroaches everywhere. It can’t be a coincidence. It’s just too ironic.

==[END TIME WARP ]==

Well, there it is (or was, anyway).

Later. Love.

Acadiana

"Isn't there supposed to be tasso in this?" I asked.

She was in a hurry. She was very busy. She leaned over and glanced at the bowl, "I'll check on it for you," she said, smiling a cute little smile as she picked up her tray and, with one hand, lifted the folding stand on which it was sitting.

"No big deal," I smiled.

Conversations crossed the table, some casual and some business casual. I didn't really engage in any of them. I speared a shrimp, covered in spices, and some pasta and tasted it. Amazing, truly. Lifting my short, broad wine glass, I swirled the red Pinot around and then smelled it. I was trying to discern distinct aromas, but it just smelled like wine to me. I drank a sip and tried to make it touch every taste bud as I swallowed it. It just tasted like good wine to me.

A band of old men played Cajun music, which is discernable from Zydeco music once you've heard them both with a critical ear. Fiddle, squeeze box, acoustic guitar and triangle, just like Led Zeppelin in the early days.

"Was there a problem with your order, sir?" his Acadian accent was thick. He was the owner of the restaurant, well-known by the locals.

"Oh no. It was excellent. Just excellent. Thank you," I replied, shaking his outstretched hand.

"I was told it was not what you expected. If you were displeased at all, it's on me."

"You are under no obligation to fulfill my misconceptions, sir." This made him laugh. I continued, "The food was amazing. You should charge me extra."

"Okay, I will." He continued to laugh and gave me a pat on the shoulder as he walked off.

Down the table, someone was talking about local politics. The bread pudding arrived and people began to order coffee. They serve Mello Joy, not Community Coffee, in many restaurants in this town. It's more local, more purely Acadian.

They use more spice down here. It's even in their food.

A Wall

Somewhere in the world, there's a stone wall that has a secret. Somewhere in the world, behind a stone wall, there's a tunnel. Somewhere in the world, at the beginning of a tunnel, there are four or five torches on the wall, waiting to be lit. Somewhere in the world, in a dark, downward sloping tunnel. there's a mysterious breeze and the distant sound of dripping water. Somewhere in the world, at the end of a long tunnel, there's a deep chasm. Somewhere in the world, across a deep chasm, there's a rickety bridge made from rope and wood of questionable dependability. Somewere in the world, at the bottom of a deep chasm, below a rickety bridge, thre are loose boards that have fallen and left gaps. Somewere in the world, across a bridge that spans a chasm, across from a tunnel, there's a stone door with strange writing on it. Somewere in the world, behind a stone door with strange writing on it, there's an ancient chamber hewn out of the natural rock by forgotten hands. Somewhere in the world, in a dark, ancient chamber, there's a secret that will change everything.

What do you think? Is it out there? Can we find it, that wall? Can we tear it down?

AWOL

Hello. I'm out of town. Sorry. Please don't abandon me forever. I promise I'll be back. I'll try to post tomorrow.

Wow. That sounds a little needy, doesn't it? I'm so transparent when I'm exhausted.

Later. Love.

The Dread Pirate Robert

First this:

"Some people find the language of Shakespeare difficult to understand. Who can tell me the meaning of this last line we read?" she asked, looking around for volunteers. There were none to be found. "Mr. White, did you hear the last line?"

"Yes."

"Did you understand it?"

"I think so."

"Please tell the class what the last line was saying."

"Uh... Romeo called her butt soft and then broke her window?"

She frowned.

Okay. Enough of that. Guess what I did on the train yesterday? I sketched a picture. Oh, you'd guessed already. It's a little rough. Partially, this is just my style. I don't draw smooth, pretty, flattering sketches. I draw rough pictures with too much detail that make people look ten years older than they are. I also blame the train, which rocked and swayed as I drew. Let's be honest, though, some of the roughness has to be blamed on the subject of the portrait himself, you know.

Have a lovely day, you guys. Tell me how you're doing.

Later. Love.

P.S. - Congratulations to bella who, last night at 11:48 PM, posted comment number 666 on this latest incarnation of my blog. The power of Christ compels you, bella.

Introverted. No, wait. Extroverted. Maybe.

I could never be that cool. I couldn't. I forget myself too easily.

When I listen to music on the train, I start out okay. I'll keep typing and bob my head a little, but not outside of the parameters of coolness. Then Van Morrison's Into the Mystic, or something equally amazing, will come on. Before I know it, I'm bobbing my head way too much, I've got my eyes closed and I'm smiling a huge, stupid smile. When I realize this, I quickly open my eyes and throw up my poker face, glancing around to see if small cliques of hipsters are smirking about me.

As I stand at the station waiting for the train, I constantly catch myself whistling really loudly. No one else is doing this, just me. Everyone else is being quiet.

As I type stories in public, if funny thoughts run through my head, I will chuckle and smile a huge grin. I actually saw some teenagers making fun of me at the coffee shop the other day, pantomiming typing with a huge, dorky smile.

When I sketch pictures, I always make noises. If I'm drawing an old sailor, I'll make pirate noises under my breath. I'll make animal noises or some other noise that reminds me in some way of the person I'm drawing.

I'm hopelessly lost in my own world, where I'm allowed to be as jovial and musical and loud as I want to be. I could never be as cool as the rest of you.

I'm okay with this.

Later. Love.

Sleestak

There was something terrifying about the sleestak from The Land of the Lost. They were genuinely scary, even though they were among the least threatening monsters ever. Nevertheless, when I saw them stumbling slowly out from behind rocks and trees, always in groups of four or five, my heart always raced. 'Run!' I thought. 'Run!'

"I was a sleestak," the old homeless guy said, his cigarette flipping up and down in the corner of his lips as he talked. "Back thirty year or more ago. I got paid twelve bucks an hour to wear that damn rubber suit in that hot-ass studio. Good money in them days. Worst job I ever had."

"Wow. A sleestak? Man."

"Worst job I ever had," he repeated. "Too damn hot in that suit in that studio. There was three of us, so they had to shoot all the scenes more than once if they wanted to look like they was a bunch of us. It took a long damn time. It was hot."

"So, tell me about sleestak culture. What did you guys do when you weren't chasing Marshall, Will or Holly?"

He took a drink of the coffee I bought him and took a long draw off his cigarette. "We stood around in that hot-ass studio waiting for our cue," he said. "They had coffee. Damn coffee. We was hot as hell, and all they had for us was coffee. There was this old water fountain, but it was dirty and warm. Hell if I'm drinkin' that. Couldn't bend over in them damn suits anyway." He eyed his coffee derisively, remembering.

"How did those crystal tables work? What was their power source?" It was good to talk to a real sleestak. I had wondered about these things for years.

"The tables with the little rocks on them? Damn those things. We had two of them, and neither of them would stand up worth a damn. If you brushed 'em with your tail they'd fall over and we'd have to shoot the whole damn scene again. Damn, I hated those damn tables. I tried to fix one once. Damn unions out there won't let no one do shit who knows how. Prop work? That's a better job. They didn't have to wear no stupid-ass rubber suits." He started digging in his dirty shirt pocket for something. He didn't find it.

"How did Enik learn to speak English?"

He just looked at me a little funny. He took a big drink, finishing his coffee. "You got a couple bucks?" he asked, putting his ratty cap back on and standing to go. I dug a couple of bucks from my wallet and he shuffled off, last survivor of a once proud race. He walked so slowly.

Later. Love.

Fake ID

I want to work for a company where you have to wear a uniform. Not the "blue, short-sleeved shirts with your name over the pocket" sort of uniforms, though. I think it would be awesome if the company decided we were all going to wear long, flowing robes and sandals from now on. Wouldn't that be awesome? No? Oh, never mind.

My mom called me last night and told me that the CIA said we were finally safe after all these years and we didn't have to follow the Witness Protection Program guidelines anymore. I had no idea we were even in the Witness Protection Program. Apparently we were, but now we're not. We can even go back to our original names, if we want to. I thought these were our original names, but apparently they're not. "So, what are our real names?" I asked, shocked. "I don't remember," she replied flatly. I had no idea how to respond to that. I still don't.

I was thinking this, though: There's a difference between lying and being incorrect. Sometimes politicians today will accuse their opponents of lying when they say something that turns out to be false. If the opponent believed that they were saying something true, however, they were not lying. They were just mistaken. There's a huge difference.

So, I wasn't lying when I told everyone who I was, I was just mistaken. I'm still going to retain the same identity, however, even though I know it's not correct. I guess that makes me a liar.

Has this ever happened to you? Hmmm...

Later. Love.

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I hope this letter finds you well. I imagine you're very busy preparing for Christmas. Perhaps that's not true. I have no idea how magic factors into the time it takes you to prepare for such a daunting task as yours. Perhaps you have no need to prepare this far in advance, or perhaps the activity up there never stops. In either case, I hope and trust that things are good for you as you read this.

It's hard for me to write to you like this. We don't even know each other. I mean, I've heard about you all of my life, but we've never met. I have to confess, I really don't believe you exist. Perhaps this is a rude thing to tell you, but your unusual relationship with the public, if you exist, leads naturally to this, doesn't it? I assume you're accustomed to this sort of thing.

In spite of my doubt, I've decided to give this letter a shot. I suppose it couldn't hurt anything.

As you probably expect, this is a letter letting you know what I would like to receive for Christmas this year. I am not in the habit of asking strangers to give me things, but this, as I understand it, is your chosen profession. I suspect also, though the rules are nowhere spelled out for us, that I might be too old for you to consider my request. Perhaps you only deal with the desires of children. Having committed to this course of action, however, I will leave it to you to apply your normal protocol as you see fit.

I'd like to preface my request with a description of a perception that's been slowly growing in my mind. Studies of history have convinced me that there was, at one time, a more thoughtful tone to public discourse. Some would be quick to say to any criticism of the current state of societal dialogue that things are as they have always been. I remain convinced, however, that there was a time, not long ago, when two people, or two groups, could disagree, even about important matters, and yet could still work together, find common ground and maintain a demeanor of mutual respect. The attitude of public debate today, however, seems angry and spiteful, with disagreeing parties stooping to petty name calling and developing real hatred for one another. People are quick to call each other liars when they are sincere and criminals for making sincere mistakes with consequences. It's a troubling state of affairs, especially in affairs of state, and I can't help but wonder, "How will this end?"

It is with the preceding ideas in mind that I want you to understand my request. It is, perhaps, not the typical request you receive. Nevertheless, it is my sincere and desperate desire, and its fulfillment would bring me great joy.

I would like for the world to, once again, know what it means to... uh... be in one... uh...

Ah, screw it. I want an iPod. Audio only. Lots of gigabytes.

Yours truly and sincerely,

A. Scott White

It's All in How You Spin It

Think about a picture of the solar system. Usually the plane of the ecliptic is horizontal, conceptually parallel to the ground. The planets are arranged beside the sun at various distances, so the whole thing looks a little like a fried egg with the sun as the yoke and the plane of the ecliptic as the white. The axis of the earth is tilted a little, but, generally, the axis, were it extended, would not point at the sun. It would point "up" and "down". It is, generally, perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic.

In the picture of the solar system, the sun is "beside" the earth, not above it. Imagine we can see, in this same picture, a person standing on the earth with the sun directly "overhead". The person's feet would be pointing away from the sun and the person's head would be pointing at the sun. The person would be sticking out sideways, as though the person were lying on the plane of the ecliptic.

Although it's tempting to imagine the sun passing by overhead because, to us, it looks like the sun moves and the earth is still, I often try to picture my self sticking out at some strange angle from the earth rotating toward and then away from the sun each day and away from and then toward the sun each night. It's not easy to actually see the world this way when you look around, because relativity is very strong.

I wonder if the gods or the aliens who listen to us ever get tired of the constant Doppler effect. It would be like trying to have a conversation with someone on a merry-go-round.

Also, we always imagine leaving the earth along the plane of the ecliptic, toward the outer planets. What if we took off "up" or "down", perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. We like to imagine a surface, but we're just floating out here, with space in every direction.

So, maybe the gods or the aliens aren't hiding behind Mars. Maybe we're not spinning away from them and back toward them all the time. Maybe they're "up" or "down", and they're watching us spin the whole time.

What do you think when you think about these things?

Later. Love.

P.S. - I posted a strange little something on my cogito writing site. It's called Negation. Check it out, if you'd like. Thanks for stopping by.

A Priest Walks Into a Coffee Shop

Last night I was at the coffee shop downtown explaining the function and makeup of the Supreme Court to Bill. He's from Jordan and his real name is Bilal. I call him Bilal sometimes, but I usually just call him Bill.

"The Supreme Court is like all the other courts," I explained, "except it's a little bigger and comes with sour cream." He smiled and looked a little puzzled.

I lost interest in Bill at that moment, however, because a catholic priest - little white square on his collar and everything - walked into the coffee shop. As I always do, I watched him like a hawk, not wanting to miss anything. He walked up to the counter and ordered a small coffee. He carried it back to a table near me and picked up the newspaper that was sitting there. He drank his coffee black. At one point he saw me looking at him and smiled and nodded. Eventually, he tossed the cup in the trash and left.

Nothing. It had been, as usual, a total waste of time. I was a little annoyed.

Priests are, apparently, much quirkier and funnier when they walk into bars than when they walk into coffee shops. I wish we had more rabbis around here.

Later. Love.

Dump

We call them landfills now. Unless you know what that means, however, you'd never guess. We used to call them garbage dumps, or just dumps.

I've made a few trips to the dump over the years. Once, back when I had the old Ford Ranger with the dents all over it from the big hail storm that destroyed so many things in Fort Worth one year, I filled the back of the truck with dirt from a section of the yard I was landscaping. I rumbled down the road and highway in the little pickup to the dump down near Everman.

Dr. One Tooth (I don't think that's his real name and I'm pretty sure he doesn't really have his doctorate) greeted me at the scale. "We don't take no dirt," he suggested.

"I'm sorry?" I wondered aloud.

"We don't take no dirt here."

I was stunned. "What, then, do I do to get rid of this dirt?"

"I'd keep it. You always need dirt," he declared.

This struck me as an odd notion. 'I'll just keep it in the corner of the living room,' I thought to myself. 'Susan won't mind. We always need dirt.' "I really need to get rid of this stuff," I said.

Dr. One Tooth just stared at me. Then the other guy - I'm not sure if it was his brother Daryl or his other brother Daryl - pontificated, "Do you got a hole you could put it in?"

'Sure. Turn around,' I thought. I had only one hole in the yard, and I had just taken this dirt out of it intentionally. "No," I replied, trying not to sound too exasperated. "Is there somewhere I can dump it?"

"They's a hole on my daddy's property near here we need to fill up. You can follow me over there, if you want," said Brother Daryl.

I looked at the guy closely, trying to remember if he was one of the family members on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I was pretty sure he was, but I really needed to get rid of the dirt. "Sure," I trembled.

He walked out of the booth toward a pile of car parts stacked nearby. He got into the pile and started it, much to my surprise. It was, apparently, a vehicle of some kind. I followed him for a couple of miles, trying to remember some of the martial arts moves I'd seen in movies. I scanned the inside of the truck for weapons of some sort, but nail clippers were the best I could find.

Soon we drove over a cattle guard and through a gate. Just inside the gate, he turned off of the gravel road and drove across the field. I paused for a second. This was a pickup. I guess it could drive on dirt, though I'd never tried it before. I followed carefully, hoping I was in the correct lane and wondering what the speed limit was.

Before long we arrived at the hole. I backed the truck up to the hole and he jumped into the truck, picking up the shovel. I picked up the nail clippers and got out of the truck. He lowered the tailgate and started shoveling the dirt into the hole. I intentionally averted my eyes, not wanting to see who might have been in the bottom of the hole. He worked fast, and soon he was done.

"Thanks a lot, really," I said. I extended my hand.

He looked at my hand, brushed his hand on his pants (which got his hand dirtier, I think) and shook my hand. "No problem," he replied, putting the shovel back into the truck bed and closing the tailgate.

I nodded goodbye and climbed into the truck. After a quick, possibly illegal U-turn, I believe I may have broken the speed limit getting out of there. As I drove by the dump on the way back out to the highway, I thought about the mountains of garbage spread out over those acres. One day they'll have to bury all that stuff. One day they'll cover it all and start the long, fifty year process of testing, monitoring and reclaiming the land. On that day, they'll wish they had my dirt.

Later. Love.

Stirred, Not Shaken

The keyboard is called digital
I find this asinine
The keyboard has the letters
The digits all are mine

With the departure of daylight savings time the morning on the train is, temporarily, brighter. The sun is not up yet, but it's right behind the horizon and the sky's already awash in its gold and pink influence. The river reflects and darkens the gold of the sky and the surface is smoothly rippled, undulating. It's beautiful, and it pushes me to that place where small things can make me weep. I have to step back from that place if I'm to be of any use today.

I love the ragged, worldly, crude innocence of Modest Mouse's music playing directly into my ears (Thanks, toadman). I have to resist the urge to share it with these bewildered people around me, to try to make them feel what I feel in it. I wonder, if I unplugged these headphones, turned it up loud and danced to it, would they?

Yesterday evening I was unable to write on the train because I fell into a conversation with a guy who calls himself Mike. We discovered in ice-breaking that we know some of the same local musicians. Mike plays the snare drum with Darin, a local guitar player of whom I am a fan. Mike seems like a good guy. He talked about getting back into music after his divorce. It's hard to find paying gigs, but you can usually get free drinks. These days I mostly sing in the nude and soaking wet, but I didn't share that with Mike.

River's too old to "Trick or Treat" this year. He took it pretty well, but it was sad for him. The girls sat down and split their candy haul three ways so he could have an even share. Both of these things could make me cry this morning if I let them.

I feel good today. I'm so glad to know all of you, such as I do.

Hello, friends.

P.S. - Check out my poem When I Think of You on my cogito writing site, if you'd like to. It's sad-ish. Later. Love.