caveat emptor

Coffee and Her Father, But Mostly Coffee

There is nothing supernatural, despite what you may believe, about coffee with milk and sugar. It is not, as you may have heard, a form of witchcraft. Neither is it, as some claim, a style of martial arts. It's just something you drink, like light and dark are things you drink. It's something you smell, like good and evil are things you smell. It's something you taste, like right and wrong are things you taste. Coffee is a state of mind, but it's natural, not magical. Coffee is a system of ethics, a way of life. It belongs to earth, however. You don't have to learn it. It grows naturally. Coffee with cream and sugar will not save the world. It is the world.

Or maybe I'm thinking of something else.

Whenever she smells coffee, when she's walking through a restaurant or someone carrying a cup passes her in the hallway at work, she always thinks about her father. Dad kept his coffee cup on his knee—one hand on it to steady it, steam writhing visibly above in the drafty winter of the living room—as he sat in the big old leather chair that, although she had wanted it, her brother had taken from the house before she arrived after Dad died. She has never liked coffee. It is something other people drink, older people, men, serious and quiet people, Dad. She has never, as far as she can remember, liked much of anything about her father. He was a good father in much the same way that his leather chair was a good chair. She never got her father, really. He seemed blank and lifeless to her. Her brother got her father, like he got the chair, before she arrived. She remembers the two of them, father and son, talking about man things, dry and lifeless things, things that just didn't suit her taste, coffee things. She cannot remember ever talking to her father. She cannot remember ever playing with him. She cannot remember ever sitting, like coffee, on his knee. Whenever she smells coffee she thinks about these things. She thinks about her father.

Everything means something different to everyone. This is not, maybe, an exaggeration. Nothing means the same thing to any two people. "It's an overstatement," you'll say. "It goes too far." Maybe to you it does.

Hello, friends. Do you drink coffee? Why or why not? I drink it because it is the world. How about you?

Love.

Wordplay

I don't like the word palindrome. I think we should use a word like "esreverse" or "wordrow" or "mirrorrim" for what are now called palindromes. My favorite palindromes is: "NO PARTS? STRAP ON." My friend's favorite palindrome is Xanax. If your name were Bob, you could be your own favorite palindrome.

Do you think the media should refer to McCain as "The GOPOW"? Do you think the headlines in Miami today should read "POW WOW!" Do you think it bothered McCain when his plane ticket to Miami airport had "MIA" printed on it? Are these jokes in bad taste? If so, you'll hate this one: John McCain should have a campaign poster with Rambo on it, and it should say, "Do we get to win this time?"

I have no skill with photography nor with graphics programming, but I really want to create photo editing software just so I can give it a feature called "crop rotation".

Hello, friends. I don't have much today. Tell me something good.

Love.

Everyone's Favorite Thing: An Itemized List of What I Dislike

I do not like many of the things that most people seem to like. I find so many things distasteful that it often causes friction or awkwardness. I spend a lot of time wondering why. People often feel as though I'm judging them when I proclaim my dislike for something they enjoy. I suppose I am, at least indirectly. I suppose I'm questioning their taste or their values. It would be nicer, I suppose, to say nothing. My dislike is so strong and visceral, however, that I almost feel I have to offer an explanation for my discomfort. "It's not you making me cringe and retch, it's just that I really can't stand [INSERT ALMOST ANYTHING HERE.]" It's a no-win situation, I guess. I'm doomed to be me, making others cringe and retch.

Having thought a little about it, I have isolated a small number of root causes. I'm not proud of them, but I've felt strongly for several years now that I need to try to be honest with myself about myself. (I usually just lie to the rest of you, but I'll tell you the truth today.)

• Having grown up poor, unstylish, smoke-scented and chubby, I have an unfair natural distrust of people who are overtly beautiful, affluent or stylish. It's preemptive rejection, I'm sure. It's a defense mechanism against the rejection to which I assume these people would subject me given the chance. I take no pride in this trait, but it's fundamental to my personality and realizing this doesn't seem to mitigate the problem much. This eliminates, for me, a giant chunk of everything in popular media.
• Having been a sincere adherent of a fundamentalistic style of religion for many years, I have a strong distaste for proofery (a word I made up), simplistic syllogisms or rationalisms, and oversimplifications of complex issues. This eliminates, for me, most "news" programs, talk shows and even a lot of documentaries.
• I'm not sure where this comes from, but I really dislike being "pitched" or "sold to". I always think everyone trying to sell something is lying. This eliminates, for me, politics, commercials, news, almost everything else.
• I've always felt like an outsider. Don't get me wrong: I'm very happy and I like who I am. Nevertheless, it's still true that I've always felt like an outsider. For this reason, I think, I dislike close-knit groups, groups with clear boundaries. The simple assumption about an outsider is that they dislike groups because they are not accepted as members. While this might be true for some people, and while this may have been true for me at some point in my life, and while some history with this may even explain my current disdain for such groups, today I have no desire to belong to groups. The idea make me cringe, in fact. Instead, I have a strong desire for belonging and membership to cease to be an issue. I want the boundaries of these groups to dissolve. This is why, I think, I don't enjoy ensemble shows with their close-knit groups of young, attractive hipsters and their typical "What's up with this weirdo?" plotlines.

I suppose, to balance karma, I should list things I like. I like people, unless they're mean. I like hanging out and talking with family and friends. I like to read good writing. I have fun composing and posting this crap every day. I enjoy cooking real food from scratch. I like drawing pictures. I enjoy telling jokes. I like writing software. I enjoy football games as long as I don't care who wins. You know, stuff like that.

Luckily for everyone else, none of this makes much difference in the world. I talk about it here because this is my place. I'm important in this place. You can go almost anywhere else in the world if you don't want to read about me.

Hello, friends. Won't you tell me how you are?

Love.

metafarce

In my dream the present is like a snowplough pushing us all along atop an endless timeline. When you're alive, you're pushed along in front, rolling and tumbling in the giant pile. Then, when you die, you slip off the edge and the plough passes you by. It's a bad metaphor for time, like all metaphors in which time is a road. You think you're cutting a path for those who come behind you, but they actually end up beside you on the road. Then they proceed on without you, as you slough off to the side. No one prepares a way for those who come after on the road. We're all on the road together at the same time.

The story of Jack and the Beanstalk has many elements that betray the fact that it is not a true story. There's the beanstalk that grows so high and so quickly. There's the giant. There's the goose that lays the golden eggs. There's the idea of a castle in the clouds. This story is not dishonest because it doesn't try to seem true. This is the primary difference between storytelling and lying, the intent to seem true. Credulity tries to make truth out of stories, but ends up making lies of them. As for me, I give the benefit of the doubt. I don't do this by assuming stories are true, I do this by assuming lies are stories. There's more benefit in this, I think, than in a bag of magic beans.

Life is a riverbed. Time is the water. We stand together as long as we can against the current, sometimes strong and sometimes gentle. We're not moving upstream, we're just holding our ground. When we can hold on no longer, we float away. This metaphor doesn't satisfy us because we're nomads at heart. Living is moving. Staying in the same place is dying. We haven't learned yet that forward is not really a direction.

Hello, friends. I can't seem to say what I mean. Maybe you can say it.

Love.

The Movie Post

My new movie is like Cloverfield, but without the monster. Also no one has a cell phone or camera, so there's no video. Also I'm lying. I don't make movies. I hardly ever even see them.

I'm trying to put into words how I feel about the movie, There Will Be Blood. You've already heard, I'm sure, about Daniel Day-Lewis's amazing performance. You've already heard that the movie is gripping and memorable and sweeping and awesome. Do these opinions express my feelings about the movie? Well, no, not really. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I disagree. It's not that at all. I just have different feelings about the movie and I'm trying to figure out how best to express them to you. I've almost formulated the right words... There. I know how to describe it. I'm ready. Here, now, are my feelings about the movie There Will Be Blood: I would really like to see the movie There Will Be Blood.

(That was a twist almost exactly like the silly twist in the Train song Meet Virginia. I am not proud of this fact.)

Then there's No Country For Old Men. Holy crap! Have you seen this movie? I love The Coen Brothers so much. Were I gay (and I'm pretty sure I'm not), I'd still like the movies written, directed and produced by The Coen Brothers. Would I love The Coen Brothers themselves in a gay way? I don't know. It's a very hard thing for me to judge right now. But, I digress. The movie! No Country For Old Men! Have you seen this movie? Holy crap! I mean, have you SEEN this movie? I haven't. I'd like to.

This has been my movie post. I apologize.

Hello, friends. Seen any good movies?

Love.

P. S. - Treespotter rocks! Thanks for stopping by.

Mark Twain and then Aliens

The rumors of Mark Twain's death are not exaggerations. They were, but now they're not. Things change.

I was born in Stephenville, Texas almost thirty-seven years ago. It's true. It was, until recently, the most important thing that ever happened in Stephenville, Texas. Now? Well, it depends who you ask. Now they're being visited by UFOs. Now space aliens are considering opening a dairy farm there. It's the first time, as far as anyone knows, that space aliens have visited Stephenville, Texas. Damn sloppy job of it, if you ask me. Space aliens are supposed to be sneaky and secretive. Standards must really have dropped in the past thirty-seven years.

My point is this: Pay no attention. It was probably just military aircraft or bigfoot's blimp.

Hello, friends. What's up with you?

Love.

Brokeback Dirge and Bonny Heather

Like most Americans, I can't stop watching the E! Channel. Ever since I first heard that Heath Ledger died, I've been sitting here in front of the tube, crying. "Come to bed, Scott," Susan called to me last night. "I can't," I sobbed. "I have to know what Ryan Seacrest thinks about all of this. I need him to make sense of the world for me again." I wish I could quit you, E!! I'm just being silly. I mean no disrespect. I find his death exactly as tragic as I find every death. My condolences to his family and friends. Enough of that. Moving on. Sometimes people ask me, "Do you ever miss being a superhero? Do you miss the excitement?" I'll be honest, I really don't. Most people don't know this, but superheroing is mostly paperwork. The hours suck. The clothes only look good on you if you're in perfect shape. Put on one or two pounds and those suits show everything. Plus, you only see the bad in the world. I mean the really bad. We're talking organized evil here. It's a terrible job and I'd never want to do it again. The only part I miss, to be honest, is the free coffee. Most convenience stores and coffee shops give superheroes free coffee. That was pretty sweet. The job I really miss is my old job as an English botanist. I miss cold, dewy mornings with the flora. I miss watching grass grow. I miss logging trees. I miss the springtimes spent tracking the blooming of the Erica shrubs in my heath ledger. Hello, friends. How are you? Love.

Devils in the Details

Slow motion photography. Strobe effect. Extreme magnification. Reality is more interesting when you see the details, the things you normally miss. There is more devilry going on than meets the mind. Does the eye miss it? Is it too fast for the ear? Or, is the information all there but blowing through the mind so quickly that the mind just shrugs? "I think it was a bird or bug or something," says the mind. Is all the data that came from the eye remembered, or is just the perception of the mind, that low-quality snapshot, kept in memory? Where the hell did the details go?

She is looking at me as I speak, but she blinks. Her eyelids close over eyes smiling in my direction. I wait in anticipation. As the lids open, however, I am crushed to see that, while the eyes were closed, her focus dropped just a fraction. She is now looking slightly down and to her right. I have lost her. Without volition I lean, very slightly, down and to my left, as though her focus is something I can control. "Come back," I think to myself, but she is blinking once more, a bit too soon. I have this irrational fear that her lids, once closed, will never open again. Involuntarily, I send a nerve impulse to raise the pitch and volume of my voice, trying to engage her. The signal pulses inside me, pinging for some system to listen and respond, as her lids come together. She is gone, wandering in an inner world where I cannot follow. Terrified inside, I watch and I wait.

The universe is made up of smaller things than we know. We are more a world of motes than might, half of this and half of that and half of that, recursive descent ad infinitum. Particles matter, they matter more than we know, for they are the particulars of matter. I'm too large and compound, I know, to truly articulate particulate matters. You cannot make these things up, people, but they can make you up.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Love.

Traveling Bard

Shakespeare cannot write his best lines because he is at an airport in Chicago and the noise distracts him so. "How does one concentrate in such a state?" he wonders to himself, but he doesn't mean Illinois. Many people will later argue that he is criticizing the state of Illinois, but he was clearly using "state" to describe the state of chaos one finds at a modern airport. Shakespeare gives up on the writing and, packing his things into his bag, sets out in search of a bar.

Forty-five minutes later, sitting in a booth in a noisy, smokey airport bar, Shakespeare eyes with disdain the two remaining chicken tenders on the plate in front of him. They are cold and bland, and he hardly enjoyed them when they were warm and bland. The waitress never brought his dipping sauce, so he tried to eat them dry. His pens and paper are back out of his bag now and scattered on the table before him, beside his beer glass, too long empty. He finds no more inspiration in this strangling bar than he had back at the gate. He tries to write, but it is early evening and he is blinded by an opening in the curtains high above. It is the west. It is the sun. He thinks to himself that morning in the east is better than evening in the west. He jots a note.

On the plane Shakespeare sits beside an Italian merchant of some sort. To Shakespeare the man seems a storyteller, a liar. He likes to talk big. "Desdemona, my last lover," the man says morosely, slurring a little from gin, "scarred me so deeply I may never recover." "I'm sorry to hear that," Shakespeare says, though he doubts the man was really wounded at all.

Hello, friends. I hope this was as you like it. How are you?

Love.

I Am Stillness Sometimes Quiet

It takes a certain type of focus, and not the best type, to sit and disregard the whining necessity of tasks left undone. It's a kind of math when you're overwhelmed and it makes sense at the time. If you have 500 things to do, and you can only do one of them, what difference does it make? 500 things left undone isn't materially worse than 499, right? If you ponder long, staring at the same spot on the wall, you might arrive at the grand unified theory for accomplishing all 500 things in one fell swoop. It could happen.

When you know something, it's in your head. When it's in your head, you stand under it. You under-stand it, understand? We stand upright, with our head on top. We understand the things in our heads. This is why other animals rarely grasp things as well as we do. (Actually that has more to do with our thumbs.)

I am stillness sometimes quiet, building inside the energy that leaks always out at the seams and cracks to move the world. One day this inhaling will be complete and I will sigh or scream. Screams are usually lies, but sighs are always true. If you scream a lie loud enough the truth will run and hide. If you sigh the truth softly the lies will not notice. I cannot, however, scream the truth. It just doesn't work for me. These are the things I think as I sit and wait, building the will to move, the will to open my eyes and get to work.

Hello, friends. How are you right now? How about now?

Love.

Old and Dressed

Some statements make you feel old just by uttering them. For example:

• Summon the leech. These vapors will be the death of me!
• I like Ike.
• Hello, my name is Ethel.
• My son is about to start Driver's Ed.

In my case, it's the last statement that I've actually said, because it's true. My son, River, is about to start Driver's Ed. (Man that makes me feel old.) Within a few months I will pass my car on to him and buy myself a new car. This scares the hell out of me. Look on the bright side though: At least my insurance premium will double.

I can't talk about that any more.

I was asked yesterday whether speaking to a group makes me nervous. No. It doesn't. I'm a natural entertainer. I'm a Song and Dance man. Well, I don't dance. I just feel too self-conscious. I'm particularly averse to exotic dancing. I always, in fact, get "No Nudity" clauses in all of my contracts. It's better this way for everyone. Trust. Me. I like to keep my clothes on. I guess I'm more of a Song and Pants man.

I know what some of you are thinking. "But, Scott, what about your porn web cam site, http://www.ScottAfterDark.com?" Well, that's a different thing. That's art.

Hello, friends. How about you?

Love.

The Things I Remember Most of All

My fondest memories of the farm are of watching the cattle chop and stack the firewood on cold winter mornings. I remember how Juan Carlos Domingo de la Montaña, our big stud bull, would swing the axe over his head and, always with a little grunt, split whole timbers with one mighty blow. I remember how Princess Crystalbell Sue Worthwright, our dairy cow, would take the split pieces and stack them meticulously by the wall beside the back door so we wouldn't have to walk far to get fresh wood for the fire. Those cattle were nicer to us than we deserved. They gave me some of my fondest and clearest memories of a normal, safe, happy life on an idyllic American farm.

My saddest memory is of Mr. Worthington von der Richman-Hitler, the dour and cruel businessman in his suit and big fancy car, laughing as he poured fire on the farm to burn it down for banking and mortgages and country club membership with big fat cigars and old rich white men who control the world with their hate. I remember his goons holding Juan Carlos Domingo de la Montaña and punching him in the stomach as the old bull turned to me and, wincing in pain, groaned, "Run, boy! Save yourself!" I remember the outrage when I heard that they had taken his horns to decorate the hood of their million dollar cars and left his carcass to rot on the buffalo plains of the American prairie, making the noble native shed dignified and statuesque tears toward the distant setting sun on the horizon, wind blowing in their hair.

I will always stand for the noble young and wide-eyed, for animals wiser and more talkative than people. I will never bow to the power of banking or of old men with pocket watches and servants, laughing sinister guffaws over Wall Street Journals, sipping coffee and gin from the skulls of benevolent seals. I will always fight for happiness and farms and the pure love of a boy and his dog or a girl and her racehorse or a pig that just wants to be president of the United States so he can make people happy. Long live the hearts of innocent wonder! Down with economics and country clubs, smokestacks and harpoons, evil of every kind.

Hello, friends. Do you remember these things too?

Love.

Particularly Random, Whatever That Means

Sometimes I think people just don't understand what the movie Top Gun was trying to say about society.

I love the Fred Neil line from the song Everybody's Talkin' that says, "Goin' where the weather suits my clothes." There's something so wonderfully backwards and free about that idea. Most of us would just buy clothes to suit the weather where we are. Not the protagonist of this song. He's too wonderfully free and easy for that. I'm not like that. I put down roots, it seems. I just put on a jacket or take one off. I've been known to wear shorts in the summer, because of the heat, and long pants in the winter, to keep out the cold. Maybe you know what I mean. Maybe you do this too.

Remember last week, when I was upset about politics? I'm over that now. I can officially say that I do not care who wins the election, as long as I can still do my thing. Does that make me a selfish bastard, a bad citizen? Yes. Yes it does. Still, I'm going to cast my vote. That's really all I can do without putting forth any effort. I think that's all society can expect from a guy like me. I won't stuff ballot boxes or attempt assassinations. I won't carry signs or go door-to-door trying to convince people. I won't muscle my employees into voting certain ways. I won't steal the identities of dead people in order to cast multiple votes. I won't run for president. I'll vote. That's it. I'll go down and vote on voting day, whenever the hell that is. If someone could give me some heads up the day before that would be much appreciated.

"Sorry, Goose, but it's time to buzz the tower." That's damned right!

Hello, friends. Have you lost that loving feeling?

Love.

Seismic Grooves

Please don't follow me. I'm not really going anywhere. I'm just wandering around. I cannot handle the responsibility of being followed. You're welcome to walk with me, but please don't follow me. Thanks.

Volcanoes are set to blow. Scientists tell us this all the time. Volcanoes are set to blow and fault lines are ready to jump and lurch and grind and churn. There is nothing we can do about this except expect it and try to be ready. We cannot stop it and we cannot even predict it. We cannot ask the Earth to relent, because the Earth does not speak to us. This is, no doubt, why we invented the gods (if, indeed, we invented them and it wasn't the other way around.) It's because the Earth does not speak to us. "If you don't worship god the rocks will cry out," the Bible says. Perhaps, however, it is a confusion of cause and effect. If the rocks cried out, we would not worship. I don't know. I'm just hoping to keep the earth and molten rock below my feet and not above my head. I'm just trying to keep my footing.

Jump and lurch and grind and churn. Let's all do the Richter dance. Jump and lurch and grind and churn. Now let's form a fault line. Throw your hands in the air. Wave them like the ground's not there.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Love.

Forgotten Arts

It's been a long time since I painted. I may have forgotten how. Were I to try today, I'd grab the brush by the bristles or hair and, dipping the handle first into the canvas, try to paint pictures onto the palette. I'd try to blend after the paint dried. I'd paint the foreground and then the background. I'd balance my easel on the point, feet wobbling toward the sky. I'd name my picture after you.

Lately I've been experimenting with applying the philosophies and techniques of abstract artists and cubists to the tasks project management and computer programming. My work is being met with mixed reviews. My last Work Breakdown Structure was bold and innovative, but people wondered why its nose was upside down on its forehead. My database replies to all queries with other queries. My user interface faces inward, showing its back to the world. "I wanted people to really get behind the program," I answered in my defense, glancing around at blank stares. I think maybe I'm ahead of my time.

It's been a long time since I mowed the grass. I think my blade might be dull. I wonder how my Gnome is doing.

Hello, friends. Tell me something about you.

Love.

poem thisOne = new form();

it's a new form of poetry
   i expect it to really catch on
  it's a little like haiku,
      except you don't count syllables
        and nature isn't much of a theme
    instead you count the number of ideas
     that pass through your head
  as you type each line
   and the theme is primarily focused inward
      on the structure and process
     of the poem itself
 the first line should end after four ideas
  have passed through your head
    and then the second, if there is a second,
        should span three ideas
       or
        if you prefer
     you can count heartbeats
but not your own
 after the second line
                      you're on your own
                     good luck.

Hello, friends. Now you try. It's easy.

Love.

sekatsiM gnikaM

So, I've made a couple of dumb mistakes in the past few days. What were they, you ask? Well, I'm going to tell you. First of all, I let my genuine liking for a presidential candidate woo me into following politics. It was stupid for me to do this because I am, in the end, too very silly a person to dabble in serious things. I'm far too fragile, I really am. My second mistake is this: I've decided to post about it.

I like Barack Obama. I really do. I have no idea what his positions are and I don't care. (Remember, I'm silly.) My approach to election year politics, when I bother to have one, is this: eliminate the weirdos and extremists and then decide which, if any, you like from among of those left, if any are left. Usually there aren't any that I like. This time, however, I genuinely like Barack Obama, and he's the only one I like. When he won in the bizarre Iowa Voodoo Chief Picking Ritual, I was genuinely excited, much to my own surprise. I even subscribed to his blog. All indications yesterday were that he would win by a good margin in New Hampshire, so I paid attention.

Then he didn't win.

And now I'm crushed and depressed, which is ridiculous. This is why I cannot get too excited about things. I'm too susceptible to disappointment. I know that there is still a long process ahead. I know that he could still do well and I shouldn't give up because of this one setback and all of those things. Were I a more serious and stable person, all of these admonitions might mean something to me. I'm not, however, and I'm bummed.

I thought about not mentioning the following, but, since I'm making mistakes already, I think I will: I just don't like Hillary Clinton. It's nothing personal; I don't like any of the candidates. I lump her in with all the rest of them as "just not appealing to me in any way." I actually cringe a little when I hear her talk, like I do with most politicians. Last night she said something like, "I listened to you and, doing so, found my own voice." God, that so perfectly describes my impression of her. "Just tell me what I have to be in order for you to elect me and, I promise you, I'll be that person!" They all sound that way to me, except Obama. I'm a sucker for that guy. If he's a liar he's a damnably good one.

Then I think about the whole "woman president" thing. I think it would be cool if we had a woman president. I think it would be cool if we had a black president. In the end, however, these are really not, for me, compelling reasons to support someone I don't like. Maybe I'd feel differently were I black or were I a woman, but I don't think I would, unless being black or being a woman made me a very different person. Maybe either of those things would make me very different. I certainly am in no position to know that. I'm a white guy.

So, I'm going to stop paying attention. I'm going to unsub from Obama's blog and pretend we're all living in an autonomous collective, or a dictatorship, or an anarcho-syndicalist commune. If Obama wins, I'll be happy. If not, I'll just shrug it off. I cannot get involved. I've got too many less important things about which to worry.

Hello, friends. Tell me something good.

Love.

My Peeps

I have to admit something: I judge people who have a confederate flag pattern painted on the Chevy logo in the middle of the grill of their giant Suburban SUV. I don't think well of them. I assume that they are not good people. Let's forget about that.

A good, kind person is like a really snappy drum riff in a Led Zeppelin tune: she makes you smile, he lifts your spirits. I think you know what I mean. Also, a really smart person, clever and quick-witted, can make your day better just by talking within earshot. Don't misunderstand me, It's not that I can only appreciate intelligence. I'm not often bothered by the buzzing drone of thoughtlessness around me. I try to appreciate the various qualities of people: a kind demeanor, an ethical world-view, a generous nature, a fun attitude, a beautiful appearance, an obvious love for those they're with. Intelligence, however, engages my appreciation whenever I encounter it without regard for my will. It overcomes my defenses and demands my interest. I am a sucker for it. If some cruel magician forced me to choose between being an intelligent asshole or being a benevolent idiot, I'd struggle and fret, but I'd eventually choose to be a benevolent idiot. Hopefully I'd be too dumb to regret the decision later.

I've been wondering, as I sit here, what sort of vehicle would be the polar opposite of a giant Suburban SUV with a confederate flag pattern on the grill emblem. I'm not sure, but I keep picturing a giant hot-air balloon. I can't decide what would be painted on it, but it would be big and obvious and it would make my favorite people smile.

Hello, friends. What do you think?

Love.

Voices, Mountains, Dinosaur Footprints

Today there are voices in the fog on a clear, cold morning. To say there is no fog on a clear morning is to misunderstand the fog. It's always there and there are always voices in it. This morning one of them is Sinatra, Ol' Blue Eyes, The Chairman of the Board, The Voice. The other voices are indiscernible.

Do you remember the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Did you see it? Do you remember when Richard Dreyfuss's character kept seeing that mountain shape in mashed potatoes and shaving cream? Eventually, in the movie, he sees Devils Tower National Monument on television and realizes it is the object of his obsessive visions. Before that, however, he doesn't know what it is. He just keeps seeing it and thinking about it. It almost drives him insane. I totally relate to that feeling. Totally. I feel like that all the time. Maybe I'm insane. Or maybe, just maybe, there's a mountain out there somewhere that explains it all.

Probably, though, I'm just insane.

Frank Sinatra is being misogynistic this morning and getting on my nerves. We're all products of our age and culture, though. I'll cut him some slack. It's just dinosaur footprints. No need to run in fear.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Love.

Mentalism

Am I a psychic? Sure, of a sort. My psychic ability is unorthodox, but then which ones aren't? What is my ability? Here it is: I have the ability, most of the time, to know what people are thinking, but only if they say it out loud. What makes that a psychic ability, you ask? Well, here's the thing: I know exactly what you mean when you ask that. See? How long have I had this ability? Not very long. Plus it only works well with people who speak English. It still works a little with people who speak Spanish, but not as well as it once did.

I'm working to develop and control my skill of visibility, the ability to be noticed by people. I want it to work well, but only on demand. Today it's sporadic and random. I'm often invisible when I'd like to be visible, and vice versa.

One day we will all be able to describe what will happen in the future. Think about it. Telling the future is really just a matter of patience. I can tell you what will happen tomorrow, just not yet. It's a waiting game.

The psychic ability I'd really like to develop is more about the past than the future, and it's more about me than about other people. Looking back on situations in my life, I constantly find myself wishing that I knew now what the hell I was thinking at the time.

Hello, friends. I'd love to read your thoughts, but you have to write them first.

Love.