caveat emptor

Lost in Flowers

Last night I dreamed of flowers so tall you couldn't see over them, with stems as thick as a man's leg, growing so dense in a wide field that you couldn't see through them very far. The wind was blowing and rain was beginning to fall. The flowers were tossed in the storm and you and I were trying to keep our footing in the chaos of it all. The smell, though sweet, was aggressive and overwhelming, and we were becoming dizzy with it. "There certainly are a lot of flowers here," you said, and then a gust came. I lost sight of you as a large, sticky leaf tripped me into the mud. When I regained my feet, covered in water and mire, you were gone. I thought I heard your voice fading into the howl of the wind, but I couldn't find you. I think they were daisies. I have no idea what made them grow so large. I called your name for hours as the clouds broke up and the sun came out warm and bright in the shocking blue sky, but you were gone. Then the butterflies came. I wonder if you saw the butterflies, as big as elephants, hovering dangerously just above the petals, lighting precariously on the massive anthers and stigma. If I ever see you again I'll tell you about the butterflies there in the field of giant flowers, the field where I lost you in the storm.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Roughie Smoothie

Wilford Gumby never liked his coffee too hot or his coffee to cold but it always was. Shuffling in grumbly in his old house shoes with the big toe poking through the ancient hole chewed by a dog long dead whose name he could not recall at all he tried to blink away the unsatisfying sleep of a king-sized bed by himself. Coffee alone with toast this morning as always and he could never get the butter and knife gathered in time for the toast to still be warm so the butter was never properly spread and he didn't believe in soft butter. Soft butter, like new house shoes, was the silly fluff of stupid lives. Wilford Gumby always had the paper in front of him, rustling in one hand, while he ate his toast and drank his coffee. He never read a word.

I want to buy a blender for Wilford Gumby. I think it might revitalize his deeply-rutted life. He could make smoothies of fresh vegetables and fruits. They might work wonders with his GI tract which, though he doesn't know it, is about to give him fits. I blame his diet. A blender might be just what you need, old boy. Throw in the coffee and the toast. Throw in the hard, cold butter. Throw in the knife and plate and mug. Throw in the newspaper and the old house shoes. Throw in the king-sized bed. Put on the lid and let it fly. You might be surprised.

I wouldn't drink it though.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Motophor

Have you ever seen one of those freestyle motocross events where a guy takes off from a steep ramp at high speeds and jumps to ridiculous heights while performing acrobatics and then, in midair, if everything goes as planned, he regains control of the bike and lands safely and gloriously to great adulation? Have you seen any of these? Perhaps, like me, you're not really a fan of such activities, but you've seen them before while switching channels on the television. Have you seen them?

Well, if you've seen them, perhaps you've seen the guys who completely let go of the bike in midair. While jumping they take their hands off the handlebars and their feet off the pedals and their butt off the seat and they fly above their bike, propelled forward with it by the same Newtonian laws of motion. They are completely disconnected from the device on which they depend for a safe landing. This disconnection lasts only for fractions of seconds, and then they reach out and grab the bike, pulling themselves back onto it to prepare for a proper, non-injurious landing. Can you imagine that kind of dependency on another object? Can you imagine letting go of it and then having to get it back? Do you think you'd be able to let go?

Once in a while something goes wrong and the rider realizes he isn't going to get the bike back. When, in those quick, short seconds, he comes to this conclusion, the rider pushes away from the bike in the hopes of minimizing the damage caused by the landing. It will hurt more to land entangled with the bike than it will hurt to hit the dirt alone. So, he thrusts away from the bike as well as he can and tries to land so as to prevent serious harm. Things are going to be bad, but perhaps he can still avoid the worst of it.

Can you picture all of this?

For me, right now, I feel like I'm at the apex of the jump and I've lost the bike. I'm reaching for it, but I can't quite grasp it. It's not where I thought it was, or I'm not where I'm supposed to be, or something. I haven't completely given up hope of finding that handlebar in the next half of a second, but I'm beginning to worry about the landing.

Hello, friends. How are you today? Do you ever feel like this?

Later. Love.

Lessons Spurned. these days.

Looking out at myself from the inside, I often want to give myself advice. I say to myself:

It is foolish to value the freedom to choose above the choosing. Freedom to choose is meaningless when it is never exercised. Potential is meant to be spent, to be realized, to be consumed. Do not fear becoming a thing because of everything you will not then be. Remember that freedom is not lost in the exercise of it. You can always turn back. You can always tear down. You can always, will always, be free. Do not be confused by poor metaphors. Life is not a road you choose to the exclusion of all others. Life is not a thing you grasp in your hands so that you must release all other things. life is everything you are and everything you do. Be. Do. Live.

But, alas, I am not listening. My mind has wandered away somewhere. I'm no better a pupil than I am a teacher. And now, even the teacher is gone, distracted by some foolery. Such is life for me.

days pass
these days
between each blink
looking around
as through water
at a world of blur
dark shapes move closer
then move away
sounds like moans
and grumbles
lap against me
like waves on my shore
and i open my mouth
to speak
and the water rushes in
and i close my eyes
these days
forgetting the words
then move away
as through water
between each blink
days pass
to speak
at a world of blur
looking around
these days

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

When the Boatman Comes

Somewhere out there in the future there is a calm, endless sea. It goes all the way down, never hitting bottom. It stretches forever in every direction and never doubles back. It is flat and clean and cool and empty, except for you. You do not spend eternity there, floating alone in your own endless sea, staring up into the quiet, blue sky, but you float there for a long time. You float there until you have finished all the thoughts you had before. You float there until you have settled yourself on all the answers to all your questions, or accepted the lack thereof. You float there until everything that came before makes sense to you, until you remember all the important things and forget all the rest. When you reach that moment you will know. Some people laugh. Some people cry. Some people just smile. Some sigh.

Then the boatman comes. There's going to be a party, and you're invited.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

People Who Should Have Cancer Instead of My Wife

People who should have cancer instead of my wife:

• The creepy king from the Burger King commercials. Seriously, I hate that dude.

• The bleachy, tanny, blingy lady who screams into her cell phone EVERY DAY at the coffee shop and has the most soul-murderingly shallow and trite and mean-spirited conversations with what can only be other evil, soulless people. Okay, so I don't really want her to have cancer, but what about laryngitis? 

• Spambots.

• Wolverine. (Cause, you know, he would just heal and be okay. I have nothing against Wolverine. If you see him please make sure he understands this.)

• That lady in The Wizard of Oz who takes away Dorothy's dog. What a bitch that lady is, right? She's just awful. She needs cancer SO BAD.

• That "God Hates Fags" preacher guy. Not really. I do want SO BAD for that guy to be struck by lightning, though. Wouldn't that just be awesome? You know it would be. Can lightning make you gay? Cause that would also be great.

Okay, I can't go on with this list. I wouldn't really wish cancer on anyone. Except that Wizard of Oz lady. She's the worst person ever. I'm glad she's imaginary.

Hello, friends. Who should have cancer? Tell me.

Later. Love.

It All Points Back to Lunch

It was a discussion about good and evil, whether there is evil. Someone was talking about the tired parareligion of Kahlil Gibran. Is there evil? Are people evil? Is it just something you do or something you are? Does a bell go off when you get the answer right? Someone brought up Columbine. Who is to blame? Society? The parents? Marilyn Manson? As for me, I am fairly convinced in the freedom of the human self as expounded by Sartre in complex, wordy French. I don't blame Sartre, though. He was an awful bastard, it seems, but freedom is not his fault. He only observed it. For my part, I blame life trying to live in the path of a bullet. I blame the bullet. I blame the shooter. I really don't blame anyone. How could we prevent it? It already happened. There's no such thing as postvention. Let's go to lunch and talk about something else. I wonder if there is lunch in the world? If so, who is to blame? I want to thank them.

You cannot blame me if I love you. It's not my fault. It's nature or nurture. Ephelia said it was "irresistible as death or fate." I love you because, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, you were there, and I was doomed. It's too late now. All we can do is have lunch. I could really go for lunch. Won't you come along?

None of the great creation stories mention who made lunch. It's too bad. I'd like to thank her, or him.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Repost: Seed

More hospitals and tests today. No time for writing. Here, therefore, is a repost. I originally posted this on December 20, 2005. I hope you enjoy it:

Now you find yourself nestled in loosely packed soil. Being a seed, you begin the slow process for which you are famous. You're just floating around in this sea of particles, which is not a conducive state for anchoring a large tree. Your first job is to stabilize your position and reach out for food and water. If you succeed in this, you'll send skyward the delicate shoot that will be the trunk. If not, you'll dry out and die. These activites are all rich sources of metaphor, but not for you. You really are a seed planted in fertile soil. Your metaphors will have to come from elsewhere. You struggle like a newly married couple trying to make a place in the world, trying to start a branch for your ancient family trees. Your struggle is much like that. You do not know it, but you will succeed. In the process, however, you will become something very different. You will become a tree. There are no successful seeds, there are only trees.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Song of Nothing to Say

This is the song

The song

The song of nothing to say

Won't you sing along

Won't you sing

Won't you sing along with me

[GUITAR INTERLUDE]

When everything's been said before

Except the things

Except the things we dare not say

When inspiration hides

Because she's tired

Because she just needs a day to rest

We sing the song

This song

The song of nothing to say

[PIANO AND FLUTE INTERLUDE]

We sing the song

This song

The song of nothing to say

[JUST RIFF THROUGH THE FADE OUT. IDEAS BELOW.]

Won't you sing along with me

You don't have to say a thing

Just sing along with me

Say my nothing, I'll say yours

Sing your nothing to the world

You can say what you need to say

You can say it some other day

For now we can sing silent

Nothing to say

Nothing to say

Say it with me now

Nothing to say

[FADE OUT. END.]

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Cloud Boy

At the end of the world, where the winds all end up, there's a giant little boy who eats all the clouds. With his mouth wipe open in a hungry grin and his oversized knife and fork in his chubby hands, he shovels large chunks down his throat into his bottomless gut. He seems friendly enough, though he never talks (as his mouth is always full). He seems content to just sit and eat, if you can call content such a voracious appetite, never satiated or satisfied. Scientists study all of this with great dismay, shocked at how wrong they had been about so many things. Parents line the fences and, peering past the signs that warn, "Don't Approach the Boy," they teach their children how the world works. "This is where the clouds go, children." "And where do they come from, mother?" "From evaporation and condensation!" screams a scientist, all red in the face. The giant boy hacks off a massive hunk of cumulus with his knife and, spearing it with his fork, stuffs it into his happy mouth. All the winds blow to this giant boy, bringing him clouds to eat, here at the end of the world.

I think Texas, at least where I live, inspires ideas about clouds and wind and sky. It's everywhere out here this time of year. We're covered in sky. Clouds grow on trees around here. Most people associate trees with other places, but some places have so many trees that you never get the sense of them, can't see the tree for the forest, you might say. Here, in this part of Texas, a tree is a solitary thing. It has a shape and a choreography. Every tree here has a different personality and a different voice and a different political philosophy. Most lean to the left, but not your left, my left. Left is relative, after all. What was I talking about? I think the wind has blown all my thoughts away into the clouds. There certainly are a lot of them around here, winds and clouds, I mean. I wonder where they're all going to in such a hurry?

One day, when we run out of clouds, the cloud boy will become angry. In his hungry rage the world will be destroyed. It will happen on a clear and lovely day, without a cloud in the sky.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

How to End the World

For lack of anything else to write, I've decided to write a "How To" post. In the interest of attracting the attention of The Department of Homeland Security, I've decided that this post will be "How to Make a Weapon of Mass Destruction." Here goes.

1. First you're going to need anger issues. Maybe you're ugly or uncool. Maybe nobody ever asked you out. Maybe you have no talent or your parents are just awful. Whatever it is, get angry. Hold it all in (for now).
2. Now you're going to need something dangerous. A deadly virus or a strong source of radiation or something that explodes very violently will work. Just, you know, make sure it's very, very dangerous, like, weapon-of-mass-destruction dangerous.
3. Put the dangerous thing into or onto some sort of delivery device like a car or an intercontinental ballistic missle or a highly suggestible religious fanatic.
4. Now you'll need a manifesto. This is probably the hardest part. You don't want people laughing at you later. Your manifesto will have to speak for you after you commit your atrocity because they are going to find your miserable ass and stomp you into dust. I mean, you can't really blame them, right? Here's a pointer: Use the word "justice" liberally. Good luck.
5. Now you just schedule and execute your awful atrocity. You might consider something that takes you out with it because, seriously, they are going to rip you a new one, dude. You're going to really regret it if they get their hands on you. And they will. It might take a little time, but they will. Then you're in big trouble, jerk.

In the interest of full disclosure I should point out that I've never actually tested these instructions. I just made them up. I would never do such a thing because people like me, for the most part. I have no anger issues and such. But you? You should really think about it. What other choice do you have?

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

I Post Therefore I Am

Moods are like winds and some people are cyclones and some people are breezes and some people are just deathly still. The wind may cool your sweat-slick skin or the wind may blow your life away. Moods out of the south or north, both poles. Moods light and variable. Sometimes I see you and it calms the gale howling in my chest. Sometimes, deadly still, sails hanging limp, I drift until I cross your current and new life swells in me, a storm on my horizon. Never mind, though, the two of us and our stormy metaphors. Outside the trees whip and bend in the gusty rain that beats on us with its literal reality. Here there is no mood, only expressions of pressure. We all handle it differently. Some of us are crushed. Some of us blow and blow and blow.

Most of the time we enjoy family with cake and ice cream and the same old stories. We love to hear them again, some part of us, to reaffirm our identities and our connections to one another. Sitting on couches and chairs we talk and laugh and smile until we're exhausted of tying this new knot in the weave of our particular story. And though I always sit out on the edge of togetherness, that's just another part of it all, as much a part as any other. There can be no middle without edges, I suppose, and without the gravity of community there is no opportunity to break away. Motion is meaningless in the void.

I don't know. I don't know. Big words about small ideas. Must be something in the wind. Just a mood.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

A More Typical Post of the Genre "Blog"

The Caveat Emptor Advisory Board felt yesterday's post was entirely too thinky. "What the hell does it even mean?" asked Richard Arthur Pemberton III, the distinguished Chairman. "I have twelve doctoral degrees and am professor emeritus at four ivy league universities and I didn't understand it at all. I think it was just gibberish." Rick is never a fan of the thinky stuff.

So, today I've been "advised" (ordered) to post something more "bloggy." Here goes.

Went to dinner last night at a place called the Chef Point Cafe. It's not much to look at. In fact, it's a gas station. Not even a nice gas station. To be honest, I don't think I would buy gas there. Here's the thing, though, it also has an amazing restaurant in it. Who knew? Apparently it was recently featured on the Food Network's show "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" or, as I like to call it, "Throw Up! with Guy Fieri!" Here are some photos of the filming.

The food? It was amazing. Susan had the Blackened Stuffed Pork Chops featured on the show. I had the same thing, but chicken. We didn't have the renowned bread pudding, but we should have. My soul weeps for not having tasted it.

Hmmm... what else is going on in my life that's blog worthy. Hmmm...

Oh! The Internet is sending me cookies! Again! Don't you love it when the Internet sends you cookies? It's so awesome and makes you feel so... What? The Internet has never sent you cookies? Really? How strange. It's happened to me twice now. Funny. Well, I wouldn't take it personally. I'm sure it will happen for you.

I'm trying to avoid the C word. (Not THAT C word, the other one.)

On the cancer front, we're still in information gathering mode. We know it's an adenocarcinoma, about 5cm in length, in the distal esophagus and proximal stomach, the area known as the Gastroesophageal or Esophagogastric Junction. My working theory (Thanks, Google!) is that it's a Siewert type II or type III, but I'm not a professional oncologist, having only studied the subject for four or five days on Google. The CT scan we got on Wednesday showed that the cancer doesn't seem to have spread much, if at all. There's one spot they're going to look at more closely with ultrasound and a PET scan, but things aren't as bad as they might have been. They still haven't told us what "stage" the cancer is, so we're just being patient (NOT) and waiting. We're having meetings with doctors and phone calls and appointments over the next week. Hopefully we'll have a plan soon. Until then, we'll just keep waiting. And eating. (Do you eat when you're stressed? Do I? I can't answer right now because my mouth is full of food.)

Rereading this, I can see that it's very "we"-centric. I should probably mention Susan. You remember Susan, right? She's the one that actually has the cancer? Susan is going to work as usual and being a patient patient, though she's understandably anxious. She still has the ocassional discomfort and trouble swallowing that led her to get the initial test that found the cancer, but she's otherwise fine for now. Her spirits have been remarkably good and she's able to talk about both the hopeful scenarios and the worst ones with candor and honesty. She's a very strong and realistic person.

That's all I've got. What about you? How are you today?

Later. Love.

Differentiation, Reification and Seduction

Everything is on both ends. Go all the way big and you have everything, the entire universe is there if you go big enough. Open your arms and your mind to the horizons and keep going bigger and bigger. Eventually you get to everything, infinity notwithstanding. Go small, however, and you get everything also. Go past the surface and the molecules and the atoms to the basic particles. When you arrive, you see what everything looks like. At the smallest of the small, everything is the same. Everything is like everything. Differences only exist here, in the middle. This is why mistakes in abstraction and focus lead to confusion and not clarity. You have to find the right place in the middle where the sameness and the uniqueness mix just right. Everything is no more useful than nothing.

Reification is the natural result of pattern recognition in this process. It gives a name to the pattern so we can handle it more easily, more freely, more efficiently. Pattern recognition is a defense mechanism for the juggler that is the mind. It turns the flying chaos of multiple balls or beanbags or chainsaws into the manageable simplicity of one. Maybe you know what I mean, maybe you have felt that relief. It's hard to hold it all in focus long enough to keep it in the air, to keep things moving. I don't know. Maybe it's just some of us but not all of us. Maybe there's a pattern.

All human action is a step in the longer discipline of seduction. Seduction is, ultimately, the project of every human. Philanthropy, revolution, insanity, citizenship, loyalty, prejudice, comedy, achievement, seductions all. We are, all of us, trying to pull you in closer, trying to see what you have to offer, trying to make you ours. This is, of course, only one level of abstraction, only one dimension of perception. Underneath that the everything moves and pulses and breathes. Can you feel it there? Moving? Underneath you? On top of you? That's what I'm talking about.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Things You Can Count On [sic]

There are, believe it or not, things on which you can count in life. To be more clear and less correct, there are things you can count on. Here are a few:

• If you buy the right kind of soil, put it in the right sort of vessel, plant the right species of seed and provide the right type of care, a beautiful flowering plant will grow. It's true. You can count on it.
• If you drive to the Grand Canyon with a watermelon in your car, park as close to the edge as they let you, walk the remaining distance with the watermelon under your arm and throw the watermelon as far as you can out into the abyss, the watermelon will fall into the Grand Canyon and smash to tasty bits on the rocks below. It's true. It will. It's completely reliable.
• If you cover your hair with hairspray and then light a match and toss it into your hair you will set your hair on fire. Count on it.
• If you pour cold milk into a tall, clean glass, add just the right portion of chocolate syrup or sweetened cocoa powder and then stir appropriately, you will have a perfect glass of chocolate milk. No other result is possible.
• If you marinate a five pound beef roast in Italian dressing for about four hours, preheat a properly working oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, heat a bit of olive oil in a large, nonstick, cast iron skillet, sear the roast well on all sides, wrap the roast - fat side up - in foil, pouring the drippings from the skillet over it, place it in a large, shallow baking pan, and put it in the oven for at least six hours, maybe a bit more, you will have a delicious roast of beef. It always works.
• If you put one hand softly on the side of the neck of a woman who loves you in the right way, put the other on the back of her hip, pull her close, and kiss her softly on the lips, she will kiss you back. I have found this to be foolproof.

I'm sure there are some things I have missed. If I asked you to list more, I'm sure I could count on you to do so. I've learned this about you. I'm not asking anything of you, however. I'm just happy you stopped by.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

P. S.: Though any of you who are my Facebook friends or Twitter followers have heard, I feel, in the interest of disclosure and by way of explanation of any change that might become apparent in the mood of this site, that I should let you know frankly what is happening in my reality. Yesterday we learned that Susan, my wife, has cancer in her esophagus. We don't know yet the extent or stage or even type of cancer. Tests begin tomorrow to discover all of this. So, the future has become even more of a mystery to us than the future always has been. So, there it is. That's what's happening. Thanks for stopping by.

Elephant in the Room

There is an elephant in the room. We try not to mention him because there is nothing we can do about him. Theories abound, mumbled and whispered, about responsibility for the elephant. Does it really matter, though? The elephant is here and he's not going away. So, we throw a blanket over him and tell people he is an end table. No one believes this, but everyone sticks to protocol. Except the elephant. He throws off the blanket and takes a giant dump in the corner. We tell people it is a plant stand.

The elephant is a poem in which all the words we cannot say flow in perfect rhythm and rhyme. Nothing ever goes unsaid in the end. You can hold your tongue. You can shove your fists into your ears. You can sew your mouth shut or scream at the top of your lungs. When the dust settles, however, the elephant has crushed your chest and written your story in big red footprints leading toward the elephant-shaped hole in the wall. Every story gets told and you have to listen to the part you're in. Elephants never forget.

Here's what you do: Teach the elephant tricks. Make him your friend. Paint murals on his massive sides. Ride him away into the sunset.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.