caveat emptor

Doodling with Sacred Ink

As a writer, one of the big risks is that you will create a world so realistic that it will draw you in. You will become obsessed. Inevitably, then, you will yield to the temptation to breathe life into that world. Now you’ve done it. You’re no longer a writer, you’re a creator, a god. There’s no way for this to turn out well. Independent life leads to freedom leads to suffering leads to evil. It happens every time. And this time, it’s your fault. You’re the god. This is why I always burn my good writing. If it’s good, it’s dangerous. We’re not cut out to be gods. No one is.

Somewhere on a long stretch of empty highway in the afternoon heat, the devil is jogging. Every few hundred yards he has to stop and catch his breath. He can’t seem to get into a rhythm, to get his breathing right. His top minions cannot understand why he feels compelled to do this, but he’s just been feeling soft lately, out of shape. It’s beginning to affect his self esteem. So, he decided to take off for a while, to get alone and get healthy. As he psyches himself up to try again, to go at least a mile before he rests, he wonders if maybe he doesn’t have the right shoes. They were advertised as running shoes at the store, but maybe he should have gone to a specialist or something. Maybe his instep needs custom fitting or whatnot. He’s not sure, so he puts it out of his mind and, taking a deep breath, sets off again, his stride a little awkward, a bit too bouncy, robbing him of energy with every heavy impact on the hot blacktop.

When the world was young the godchild played in the shade of the rainforests with the ants and snakes. They did dances for him, in their own way. It was here, in the cool, wet place, that the godchild saw the sacred orchid. It was purest white with a blaze of crimson red at its heart. When he saw it, the godchild smiled so widely and laughed so joyfully that he burst into millions of flower petals which scattered on the winds all over the earth and, when they landed, became, each one, a man or a woman. One day, when the last man or woman dies, an orchid will bloom in the forest, and the godchild will step out from its crimson heart. “Is the orchid good or evil?” asked the disciple. At this, the teacher only smiled.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well today.

Later. Love.

Small Stories Sighing

He tried to write songs to which everyone could relate, songs that had a better than average chance of making someone smile and remember something long forgotten. Only rarely did he succeed as he hoped. Once in a while his piano would reach out like the ghost of some long lost déjà vu and confront you with your own long ago. He tried to steal lyrics from conversations we’ve all had before and then give them back before we even missed them. It was sleepy like dreams, his music, and you might convince yourself that you didn’t like it just before a tear ran down your cheek and surprised you, having escaped into the present from some broken heart that mended years before. He’ll never be famous, and you may never remember him, but your memories will. Yesterday is a fan of his.

At first you thought it might have been your imagination, but now you are sure. Someone is approaching quietly through the mist and fog of this marshy fen. You aren’t afraid, for some reason, though you have a kind of existential anxiety about this stranger’s impending arrival. You feel compelled to refrain from calling out, and you are too exhausted to rise from the wet, cold ground and try some sort of escape. He’s walking directly toward you, deliberate and ominous. Your panting heaves have slowed a bit but your pulse still pounds loudly in your head, the rhythm of your mortality asserting itself against inevitable doom. And still he comes. He was always going to come.

It’s a cold July day in the South American city, and you are hurrying back to the rustic hostel with your lunch, so you do not notice that the tiny monkey in the tree overhead is wearing a little hat. He’s waiting there for the old man to play that song on the guitar. Then he’ll do his dance. He’s pretty good at it, the monkey, though he hasn’t done it for a few months. The old man got sick and stopped coming to the corner with his tin cup and guitar. The monkey sits and waits, feeling a kind of primitive nostalgia for the dance, the guitar, the old man. Somewhere, not far away, there is the sound of a funeral procession.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

End of Days These Days

In those days you will rise before dawn with creaking knees and stumble on towels left strewn by distracted and slovenly bathers. In those days the toilet flap will stick and you will have to jiggle the handle lest the water run and run. In those days the shower will spray cold for several minutes before warmth slowly flows. The toothpaste tube will be empty. The socks won’t match. The hairbrush will be wrapped in a weaving of lost hair. In those days you will nick your chin with the razor in that same place where you’ve nicked your chin before, where your fathers nicked their chin and their fathers before them. And when you don the T-shirt with the overstretched neck and the underwear with the exhausted elastic band, you will know that the hour draws nigh. Then drag yourself to the coffee shop, boot up the laptop, and tell the world to make ready. The horsemen approach.

I have a playlist on my iTunes called “Writing.” It’s what I shuffle through when I write. Mostly it’s instrumental music, lots of movie soundtracks and some classical. Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Art of Noise, Gregorian chant, Howard Shore, Mouret, Bruce Rowland, Franz Shubert. You know, that kind of stuff. The primary prerequisite is that it cannot have lyrics. I find lyrics distracting when I’m writing. Lyrics always make me want to sing along. This is what I do. I listen. I write. I sing along. All day, every day, for as long as I can remember, this is what I do.

When the end of days comes I’m not leaving. I’m going to hide until the end is over and then come out and see what’s left. I’m going to look for others like me, people who have stayed behind. We’ll build a timeless society free of fate and doom. The end is over. It’s smooth sailing from here to forever after.

Hello, friends. I hope to see you there.

Later. Love.

The Dance. The Wolf of the World. The Seamstress of Dreams.

If you find yourself mysteriously, unclear how you came to be there, in the middle of a grand ballroom, dressed in fine and lovely clothes, surrounded by happy dancers, with a beautiful person in your arms, then dance. Don’t ask questions, just pull the person close and dance until the music stops. Don’t make any sudden moves that might break the spell. Join the current and flow of the other dancers around you. Don’t speak and draw attention to yourself. Don’t close your eyes or you may open them in a different place, a place less lovely, with no beautiful person within arm’s reach, an office cubicle or a cheap hotel room or a Laundromat, some sort of prison cell or dungeon. Don’t worry about any of this while the music is playing. Just dance, friend. This doesn’t happen every day.

In the very last instant of your life, just before you die, the wolf of the world comes to you. He considers you, unblinking, from a few feet away. Then he comes over and lies down beside you as you fall asleep. The last thing you realize is that no one is going to grade you or judge you on your life. You were alive, like everyone else, and the universe accepts your contribution without condemnation. You played your part. The wolf of the world comes to you so you can know this, in the end, and face oblivion without regret.

No one remembers her name nor her face, but she is there with all of us every day. She is the seamstress of dreams. She makes the dresses and uniforms and rags we all wear in our dreams. As we drift away to sleep, she reads the script of our dreams, measures us, and creates the clothing of our nightmares and visions. Then she gently removes whatever we fell asleep in and dresses us for our dreams. “Do you remember what you were wearing?” the girl at the coffee shop asks you. You were telling her about your dream, this total stranger, because she brought up the subject. “Not really,” you say, furrowing your brow and trying to remember. She sighs and looks a little disappointed, and you wonder again if you’ve seen her somewhere before. Did you dance with her once?

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Sun Post

Once again the planet rolls me around toward the sun. I’m not sure why the planet does this to me, what she expects me to do. Every day, though, she moves me out of her cool, dark shadow and reaches me out as close to the sun as she can, given her constraints and bonds. Mostly I stay under shelter and wait for her to slide me back into her shade. I wonder, sometimes, if she will get tired of this, tired of my failure to be her ambassador to the stars. I don’t want to disappoint her, but the sun intimidates me. I cannot look him in the eye. I’ve been told it’s not a good idea.

They were playing “Good Scientist, Bad Scientist” with me, hoping to break my will, to get me to confess something. “The sun is the saddest and most frightened entity in the universe,” one told me. “If you stare into it, your psyche will be unable to cope with the raw emotion. Your own mind will blind your eyes so that you cannot see the misery of the sun.” “That’s preposterous,” said the other, rolling his eyes. “The sun has no emotions, it’s an inanimate object. It’s the overwhelming light from the sun that will blind you if you stare at it.” I wasn’t going for it, though. I knew the truth and they were both wrong. I swore that I would never tell, however, so I just sat and blinked, hoping they would give up soon.

You are noon for the sun. When the sun is as close to you as it can get, that is the pinnacle of his day. Everything fades from there, until you come around again.

Hello, friends. I trust you to be well. Don’t disappoint me.

Later. Love.

This Water World

Bed-headed and clad only in yesterday’s jeans, he walked into the tiny market across the street from his stilted beachfront bungalow. The sign on the door said “NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE,” but he was still young and well-built enough that nobody complained. He stumbled sleepily among the aisles until he found strawberry Pop-Tarts and instant coffee. At the counter he asked for Winston 100s and a book of matches, and he yawned and tousled his unkempt curls as the young clerk rang up his items. “You eat that stuff?” she asked him, nodding toward the Pop-Tarts. He had already broken open the cigarettes and had one bouncing between his lips when he shrugged and replied in his rough morning voice, “No choice. There’s no good markets around here.” He smiled to show he was joking and she returned his smile. A moment later, walking back toward the breath sounds of the water and the gulls riding the morning wind overhead, his breakfast swinging in a plastic bag at his side, a thrill of freedom swept through him and he knew, for at least one more day, that it was good to be young and alive in a place like this.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a writer, but standing ankle-deep in the ocean always raises the same idea in my head, “I’m connected with every place in the world. Now that I’m in this water, I could step out of it on any continent.” In truth, I never venture in these days above my ankles. Can’t get far that way. I just don’t want to scare the ocean, that’s all. I know how intimidating I can be, and the ocean has been through so much already.

If you round up, this world is all water. Giant squids frolic in the lower atmosphere. Whales and sea turtles and tuna hover just above the firmament. A young dude, his eyes wide open and his jeans back on the beach, dives as deep as he can before he has to go back and breathe. We are all swimming, treading water, this close to drowning.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

How to Bake a Loaf of Bread, More or Less

I loaded my suitcase and my pet Albino Polar Bear, Captain Platypus, into the back of my station wagon and set off for Denver, Colorado to make my petition to Tammy the Werewolf King in her glittering palace of rhinestones, Castle Pontiac LeMans. Fellow werewolves said I was a fool to go. “You’re not a werewolf, Ed,” they told me. “And neither are we.” None of them could equal my boldness, I knew. They were timid lycanthropes, afraid to chase the wild goose across the American panoply.

Somewhere around Cleveland I sold Captain Platypus to a fast food restaurant. I think they put him in the chili. Before you get mad at me, you should know that he was already dead when I sold him. From neglect. Sometimes I forget that there’s nothing for a polar bear to eat in a station wagon. I’ve written it on my hand, so I’ll remember from now on. So everything’s okay.

Fifteen years later, after several missed turns totaling almost 33,000 extra miles, I arrived at my destination, the Blue Cathedral of the Vampire Prime Minister, America Chapter. As I pulled into the parking garage, I knew that my decision to leave my fellow vampires years ago and set out with my pet platypus, Captain Station Wagon, had been the right decision. I was so excited to see the Prime Minister, however, that, upon arriving at the top floor of the garage and selecting a parking place, I accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake and my old pickup truck smashed into and flipped over the small concrete wall and fell eight floors to the crushing pavement below. I was killed instantly, and I’m writing this from the afterlife. I’m not allowed to tell you what it’s like here, but it’s nothing like you think it’s going to be, as far as I know.

Hello, friends. I’m coming to visit later. Have tea ready.

Later. Love.

Acquired Skills and Personal Negative Space

In my life I have developed various proficiencies and a smattering of random expertise. I can down a mug of lukewarm coffee from brim to bottom with only the slightest shudder even if it doesn’t taste very good. I can tell just by glancing at most people whether it would be a better idea to speak or to remain silent or to get the hell out of there, though I don’t always go with the better idea. I can juggle up to three items or two tasks at once. I can convert, through suppression and denial, rage and frustration that would otherwise manifest as murderous violence into slow-burning depression and general malaise. I can often talk people out of things they think they want me to do for them, or wait them out until they forget, thereby avoiding up to 75% of what is requested of me. I can sit and make small talk with my opponents, even gaining their confidence and trust. I can, using only the power of my mind, call down celestial fire to consume my enemies or to cook my supper.

Some people are sheltered and comforted in life with deep, wide friendships that surround them and cover them on all sides at all times. Some people have friends so present and intimate that they become like one organism, keeping nothing from one another. This kind of friendship, in the metaphor I’m crafting, is a blanket of such area and thermal efficiency that it fully suffices for the job of blanketing. And now, the contrast. Some of us, you see, grab scraps of friendship in passing where we can. Some small talk in a meeting. A joke at the coffee shop. Standing for a few minutes in a circle of conversation at some occasional party, everyone holding and sipping from a bottle or a glass dripping with condensation or perhaps nibbling from a small plate of party food an hour or two past its prime. We gather these little patches of friendship around us as well as we can in order to keep warm, in order to feel that we have some context in this vast, impersonal void. We have various reasons, healthy or pathological, for this vagabond behavior, this hobo companionship. Sure, there are drafts and exposures, but we survive out here. Give us a blanket and we’d just tear it to pieces, send you away bewildered and offended. It’s not that we don’t appreciate it, it’s just that we don’t need it. Well, maybe we need it, but we just can’t take proper care of it. I don’t know. This metaphor of engagement, this engagement of metaphor, has left me tired and I just want to be alone now. It was nice to talk to you for a minute. See you later.

You know how people say, “Always leave them wanting more?” I think I live by the inverse of that. If I am enjoying your company then I will usually walk away. I don’t want to wear out your welcome. I want to end on your high note. This is another talent I have.

Hello, friends. I hope you can see a way out, unless you like it here, in which case I’m happy for you.

Later. Love.

Picture Day Again

Susan felt like going through old pictures last night. I scanned a few. Not much to say today, and not much time to say it, so I’ll share a few of them.

The first one is of Susan and me when we were engaged. There’s something very late-eighties/early-nineties about the whole aesthetic. I remember that blue dress she’s wearing. She wore it well.

The next picture is my dad, Smoky. His real name is William, but he’s always gone by Smoky. This picture was taken in 1994 or something like that. I only saw my dad a few times from the time I was a kid until just a few years ago. We see him a couple of times a year now.

The next picture is of my nephew, Joshua. He's 19 or 20 now and stands about six foot six or something, but he was probably three or four in this photo. The look on his face cracks me up.

This is a picture of me holding River on his first Christmas. He’s 18 now. He’s in college and just started his first job (at a gas station) yesterday. I’m only a couple of years older in this picture than he is now. Wow. Time flies.

Well, that’s it for today. See you tomorrow.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Yin and Yang

An idiot once said, “We must laugh in spite of awful sorrows if we are to laugh at all.” I actually agree with that, but my strict code of self-deprecation requires that I call myself an idiot. There is so much that is good in life, like pot roast and a cool breeze as a front blows in on a hot day and blustery, cool, grey autumn mornings that are electric with mystery. There is also, however, great sadness and sorrow in the world. You have to figure out how to synthesize the two into a quality life. I think it was Plato who said, “You take the good. You take the bad. You take them both and there you have the facts of life.” Or maybe that was Aristotle. It doesn’t matter. The point is this: A funny thing happened on the way to the grave.

I have trouble remembering what I’ve promised to various people in my life so I’ve started carrying a Sharpie and scribbling notes onto people’s foreheads as I talk to them. Most people don’t take it very well, but one person just kept talking like nothing was happening. I was so pleasantly surprised that I drew a star on her forehead, and a smiley face. Also I put a small “1” in superscript and wrote a note on her foot.

I went to a clown funeral. People lined up to view the body, all decked out in full clown regalia. Most of the flower arrangements squirted you if you got too close. The eulogist mimed his tribute, until he was overcome with tears and had to accept a long stream of handkerchiefs and a pair of polka-dotted boxers from a pallbearer.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re you. Someone has to be.

Later. Love.

Trapped in Science and Math

I’m searching for the center of infinity. I’ve heard that it’s around here somewhere. “It’s everywhere and nowhere,” my mathematician friend keeps telling me, but that makes no sense to me. I’m searching for the center of infinity so I can plant my standard there and claim everything for myself. I have control everything or I cannot be completely safe in this overwhelming infinity in which we’re stranded. I have to make it mine. Don’t worry, though. I’ll share some of it with you.

[this paragraph redacted for now]

Somewhere, I imagine, there is a dimension of pure thought and emotion. In that place there are no frail bodies to weigh on us with their infirmities. I want to disappear into the plane with you. We can sever all our ties with the other dimensions and live there forever, thinking about how lucky we are.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Town Legend

Jake Bigsy would never have put up with this shit. True, I’ve never actually met Jake Bigsy, but I’ve heard about him plenty. All us kids have. Jake Bigsy is a town legend. Jake Bigsy punched officer Milke in the nose. Jake Bigsy saved Sally Perth from the Perth’s barn fire, just ran into the fire and brought her out, cool as anything. Jake Bigsy shot the corner off the marble courthouse sign. So, even though I never met the guy, I feel certain that this is the type of shit Jake Bigsy would not put up with. If Jake Bigsy was here, he’d know what to do.

I’ve come up with a plan to make a legend out of you in this town. I’ve studied town legends from all over the country and I know exactly how to do it. If you’ve ever done anything interesting, anything at all, let me know, and I’ll scatter that in with all the lies. As for you, you need to become a little aloof, a little standoffish. When people start to ask you if you really did this or that, just smile and wink at them. You can wink, right? If not, we’ll work on that. Do you know how to ride a motorcycle?

Somewhere, in a big city far away, he’s watching baseball, trying to hear the play-by-play over the clicking and the in and out drag of the respirator. His team is down by one point in the bottom of the ninth. Things are looking grim. He keeps blinking away the constant watering of his old eyes, trying to focus on the television. It’s late in the evening and no one is around in the hallways. The nurses will come in once to check on him in the middle of the night, but he’s otherwise alone, as usual. The announcer says something about the pitcher’s hometown, but the damn respirator clicks and he doesn’t quite catch it. It sounded like a familiar town name, somewhere he lived long ago, but he couldn’t be sure. Suddenly, with a man on first and a man on third, there’s an epic crack and the ball sails into the far bleachers. Home run! Three points! Victory! Game over. He smiles broadly as his heart swells with the thrill of such a perfect win. “That’s it,” he thinks to himself. “That’s as good as it’s gonna get.” So, without a second thought or the shadow of a regret, Jake Bigsy strains and reaches over and jerks the respirator plug from the wall, punching the button to silence the alarm. Then he sinks happily into his pillow and, as welcome silence washes over him, he closes his eyes and waits for whatever comes next.

Hello, friends. Let’s be legends, you and me. It’s not that hard if you lie.

Later. Love.

Hemispheres in Bloom

He decided that she must have been a flower in a previous life, because she blossomed in the sun. When she came out from any shelter or shade and the sun painted yellow across her, she relaxed and straightened and turned her head up ever so slightly. Often she would even smile, unaware, regardless of whatever other thought or emotion she might have been feeling just an instant ago in that darker, colder place. “She’s one of those flowers that open and turn toward the sun,” he told his friend. “Morning glories,” his friend replied.

Some species of morning glories bloom at night. Respectable morning glories do not associate with them. Who knows what they do in the dark, when good morning glories are closed, as they should be? They cannot possibly be up to anything wholesome or worthy. They must be lusty, bawdy, disreputable sorts of flowers. They dress in leather with body art and piercings. Their music is always too loud. They live only for the dark, cool night moment in which they find themselves. They are doomed and they don’t give a damn.

We meet each day at dawn and at dusk as we pass one another on the way from waking life to sleep. When the sun is setting she wakes me with a kiss. When the sun is rising I return the gift. We will talk, one of us blossoming as the other fades. If passion kindles we might rise and open to one another and spend our passing moments in urgent sexual communion or play. We are perfect together, like light and dark. I am her dream, and she is my daydream.

Hello, friends. I hope your plans are thwarted today in lovely ways.

Later. Love.

How to Spend Your Dearth of Wealth

The last thing we ever wanted to know was how we compared to some ideal. We were doing the best we could, and we knew deep in our gut that fault and flaw could be found. We couldn’t afford to think about that. We couldn’t afford much in those days. We just had to blur our eyes with happy tears and stare each other in the face, ignoring the jagged reality in our peripheral vision. We were making do, doing our best, besting our challenges, challenging our detractors. We were setting new standards, painting pretty postcards of new mongrel ideals, ideals that could not be achieved by trying. You had to surrender, to despair, to let go.

What good is hope to the fulfilled? What good is hope to kings and queens and gods? Hope for such as these is like pearls before swine. Banish hope from the palaces. Have the servants stomp it and throw it out with the garbage. Let it wash down in broken pieces to the streets and gutters, to the dark and miserable places where the hopeless are slowly losing their minds, giving up, fading away. And when they stumble and fall and cannot rise again, let them find it there. Filthy cheeks pressed down in the grime, let their eyes fall onto it, focusing slowly. ‘What is this? I seem to remember this from long ago. What did we call it, when we were young and strong?’ Let them reach out and grasp at it, pull it close, stare with wonder into this forgotten mercy as they remember the word: Hope.

I do not hate the wealthy and successful, of course. Someone has to provide jobs for the less fortunate. There are many generous rich men and women who employ the rest of us. Some of us even get pretty good jobs out of the deal, make a decent wage. It’s true. We don’t all have to slave for these people in exchange for minimum wage, the very least they are legally allowed to give us. Only some of us have to do that. It’s very simple, in the restless and pointless rage of youthful poverty, to imagine the seemingly righteous thrill of walking into some nice restaurant and finding some rich bastard eating gold-plated duck stuffed with platinum-battered lobster and kicking him right in the neck and, while he’s gasping for air, slamming his face right down into the meal you couldn’t pay for even if you saved every penny you earned for two months. This seems like justice to you at the time, not hoodlum assault. But, as awesome as that would be—and it would, in truth, be one of the most awesome of things—it doesn’t really help anyone. That bastard isn’t really the problem. Hell, he might even be a good guy. But, in the aftermath, his pain goes away and you become just some forgotten peasant hero moldering in county lockup, telling the story to the slavering delight of your lowlife peers. Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. Trust those bastards to the justice of their gilded hell and spend your untapped strength on cultivating contentment in the fertile ground of your fallow soul. Remind yourself of the truth we all know: The gods—if they are there—only love the poor.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.

Later. Love.

Stupor Man

When you talk me I am smile. Sometimes tears. Empty rumblings from stomach and soul. When you look me I am life. Look me. Talk me. I am love. And you. You too.

I my think I am stumby. Rumby wobble and lumby down. All my smiles sometimes frown. Looking up to down. And I know I am not. Sometimes I fast and fly, smile teethy and ha! Today I am stumby and glop. No go no, just ugh and slump. Here is here and there is far. Close eyes I fall back low and go to tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow, me. Maybe so.

She leaned in close and I could smell her neck, her hair, feel her lips touch my forehead, then my cheek, then my lips. My soul reached up to pull her body down, but it was too thin, too insubstantial to take her. She slipped her hand behind my head and lifted me slightly, just enough to pour the tiny cup of sleep between my useless lips. She lowered me softly back to the pillow and I sunk into the bed and disappeared.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Waffle Sunday

When he moved into her apartment he only brought a small bag of clothes and a waffle iron. "I love waffles," he said by way of explanation. He placed it in on the counter beside the toaster, ready for waffling. For the next six months things went from good to bad. All of his storied ambitions of becoming a productive writer showed themselves to be mere fictions and fantasies. He just wanted to drink her wine, to have sex with her when the mood came over him, to smoke her last cigarette. In the end, when she screamed, "Get out!" through tears and he raised his hand as though to strike her, she felt foolish and ashamed for having fallen for such an empty fairy tale as him. She was a smart girl, but she could not figure out how he had gotten into her life. It terrified her to have that particular flaw. Years later she would look back and realize that he had actually fixed that part of her. She never let anyone like him happen to her again. That was the only thing he ever gave to her. Well, that and the waffle iron. She was grateful for both. She found it in the cupboard under the silverware drawer a couple of months after he left. It hadn't been used, not even once, since he had placed it on the counter on that first day. She thought about throwing it away, but instead she took it out, put it back beside the toaster and made waffles. It was Sunday morning, the first Waffle Sunday. Her children, who arrived several years later, always thought of Sunday as Waffle Sunday. So did their children.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re ok.

Later. Love.

(Originally posted April 28, 2009)

The Eating Post

It was a massacre. Stabbing and slicing and biting. “My god!” I exclaimed. “What have you done?” She looked up from her breakfast, knife and fork in hand, a bit of animal flesh still stuck in her teeth, and asked, “What?” “The horror!” I wailed, averting my eyes. She just shrugged and kept eating her eggs over-medium with sausage as I wept silently for the chickens and the pigs. I thought about calling the cops, but they asked me to stop doing that.

Food is a very personal choice, unless you’re a veal calf. Pandas only eat bamboo, and it barely nourishes them. I knew this guy named Alvin that only ate pancakes. I heard about a girl that eats chalk. At a business convention once they told me that at Hewlett Packard they eat their children. The speaker, in his slick suit and expensive hair, seemed to think this was a good thing, though it sounds so awful. You are what you eat, after all. Chick next to me is eating a banana and drinking a mocha, like this is her own damn banana world or something, like she’s the queen of mocha and whatnot. “What’s eating you?” he asked me as I drove silently, not looking away from the road ahead. I shrugged slightly, but he didn’t hear it.

If I had to hunt for my own food I’d starve. I’d start to eat things that were lying around nearby, hairbrushes and staplers and remote controls and telephones and such. I’m sure I wouldn’t survive for very long. Then people nearby would eat me. “He tastes like office equipment,” they would say, but I wouldn’t hear them.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.

Later. Love.

Angels and Aliens. Art and Science.

Sometimes angels and aliens dress up like birds and mailmen and interact with people. The people are fully unaware that this bird or mailman or alligator snapping turtle is anything more than it appears. Angels and aliens do this because they want to understand humans, but they don’t want to get too close or be too visible. Humans are precarious creatures and should only be approached with the greatest caution. If you manage to capture a human’s fleeting attention and they find you strange or unusual they will either rally together and kill you or they will take you home and try to make you wear a sweater and/or hat and perform tricks in front of a video camera. Aliens and angels know this well, and they tremble with anxious energy as they approach humans incognito. You can tell if your toll booth attendant is an angel because he or she will always count back your change from largest to smallest denominations. You can tell if the raccoon you’re watching is an alien because its eyes will change color when it faces the moon.

Impressionist painting is more of an art than a science, though I’ve heard it involves a lot of math and a little bit of astronomy. None of this matters much when you’re rocked and wracked with sobs so wet and vigorous that you can hardly catch your breath, the kind of completely broken abandonment in which the dams of inhibitions don’t fail they just get overtopped by this flash flood of emotion. Painters set up easels all around the spectacle of your collapse and express you into abstracts and impressionisms and, saddest of all, photorealistic portraits. One visionary imagines you as a landscape, craggy mountains of grey and blue over a windblown plain of yellow grass tinged with purple. Human brokenness is more of an art than a science, though I’ve heard it involves some chemistry.

The painter on the corner is an angel. You can tell because everyone in his painting is looking at you and smiling.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re alright.

Later. Love.

One About Superheroes

She asked me what superhero I’d be, if I could be any superhero. “The Fantastic 4,” I replied. “Which one?” “All four,” I said. Then she got quiet and mad. I didn’t really understand the problem. We’d had plans to spend the evening together, but she soon made some excuse about feeling ill and she left. I guess I could have tried to make amends in some way, to ameliorate the situation, but it annoyed me that my answer to such a trivial question was somehow unacceptable.

The thing about being a superhero is that people always expect you to take care of everything. It must be exhausting, right? Sometimes cranes fall off of buildings. Why is that automatically Superman’s problem? If he’s around and he catches it, great, but you shouldn’t just expect it. Maybe Superman had plans that afternoon. Maybe he was going to go fishing, or maybe he had a date. Bad things happen in the world all the time and there are only a finite number of superheroes. I heard about a woman in Toledo who was paralyzed when a dump truck careened off of an overpass and landed on her car and she sued Batman for discrimination. “Batman saves people all the time, but only 3% of them are Irish like me,” she claimed. Can you imagine? If I were a superhero I’d throw another dump truck at her.

She called me late that night. I couldn’t tell if she was just hysterical or drunk and hysterical, but she was beside herself with anger and the motivation to scream at me. To be perfectly honest, I hardly understood anything she said, but the gist was, if I’m correct, something about being unable to commit. For forty-five minutes she slurred at me angrily. “The Thing,” I said, finally. “What?” she screamed, and then she fell mercifully silent. “I’d be the Thing,” I said, “the rock guy.” She sniffled for a moment or two and then murmured, tears still in her voice, “He’s the best one, the best Fantastic 4.” She was right. He is.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re being kind to life, and vice versa.

Later. Love.

Seasoning

Sitting in summer I wish for autumn, for cool breezes carrying the crisp imagination of grey mystery. Autumn always reminds me softly of things I once believed. It brings up old ideas without judgment. “Remember?” it asks, smiling. Mostly I pretend not to remember because I don’t want to talk about it, and autumn never insists. Of all the friends I’ve ever had, I think sometimes that autumn knows me best, understands me, likes me.

But it is summer now. Summer likes other people more than it likes me. We have never been close.

There are people for whom weather is not such a personal thing. I was discussing this a few days ago with winter. “So many people these days don’t even notice the difference between summer and me or between autumn and spring,” she said. I was talking to her on the phone because she summers down south. “They just pass each day as if time were linear and not cyclical at all. Can you imagine?” I cannot imagine such a thing and I told her so. She asked me if was still wearing that leather jacket almost every day and I told her I only wear that when she’s around.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re enjoying this season.

Later. Love.