caveat emptor

On Having Reached the Edge

When you come to the edge you do not have to jump. You don't. You could sit down and dangle your feet over the edge. Just be careful; it's a long way down. Sometimes strong winds blow out of the abyss and you want to lean into them. Don't. They are fitful, stopping suddenly, and you might lose balance and tumble headlong beyond all hope. Just sit there and lean back on the balls of your hands, kicking your feet like a child out over all that oblivion. Consider the virtue of firmament for a while. Feel the cool breeze. Watch the condors that soar at play on the fickle updrafts of dismay. You've reached the edge. You did it. After a while, if you get hungry, you can turn and go back from whence you came. There's a great sandwich shop that has the best coffee. You know the one I mean. The edge will always be here. Let's grab a sandwich and talk.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Nonsequitur Crabbiness

They're marketing autumn at us now, all orange, yellow and brown. I don't know what it is about me, but I hate people marketing at me. I cannot see it as some kind of cooperative endeavor we're in together to keep our society functioning. As beautiful as these leaves, pumpkins and cornucopias are, I only feel resentment for them. Don't wield Halloween against me. I love Halloween. Don't attack me with autumn, my favorite season. Try to summer to me all you want – I hate summer – but don't take what's mine and market it back at me. I know autumn, and your product has nothing to do with it.

I'm sorry to be so crabby. I'm not sure why I do it. Maybe I have a chemical imbalance, or maybe I'm channeling the spirit of some dead jerk. I'm actually – if I stop to think about it – feeling pretty satisfied right now. Life is good, all things considered. Sure, some things could be better, but there's little I can do about that. I'm in relatively good health, considering all my maladies and my less than ideal lifestyle. My wife, sick though she is, still putters around the house and goes with the girls to buy dresses and meets me for lunch. My job is too busy a lot of the time, but at least I have a job. The pay is pretty good. The people are nice. I'm living, as we all do, in the wake of the practice of my habits, good and bad. So far, so so. Could be better, I suppose, but it could be worse. I could be a guy with no face and only one arm and three legs but two of them are broken. I could be a sea cucumber. I could be an ant washed down a shower drain. (I wonder what happens to them.) All in all, I'm fine, just a little crabby about marketing.

It's nearing October. You know what that means. In about twenty minutes they break out the Christmas marketing crap. Ugh. Don't get me started on the Christmas marketing crap.

Hello, friends. I hope you're coping effectively.

Later. Love.

Homo Heteros

Sometimes I see people, slender people specifically, and I cannot imagine being so small. I've never been so compact, walking around with stork legs, folding and unfolding like a beach chair, reaching out to grasp with tree-branch arms. I'm built like a pile of soft boulders. It would take fewer steps to turn me into a sea lion than to turn me into whatever these people are. Convex to their concave. One leg of my jeans could be a dress for this woman, if you took it in some. This dude could wear my hatband as a belt. If I were a scientist and I discovered all of us here in this coffee shop, I'd classify us into several species. Homo Potamus. Homo Anorexus. Homo Plasticus. Homo Musculus. Homo Pilates. I don't know. We're all very different is my point. Especially you. And me.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Road in the Woods Pixelated Slightly

The shadows of the trees stripe the sandy, tan dirt road as is curves away to the right up ahead, disappearing into the woods. There is a scattering of dazzling autumn color in the foliage but still so much green that it's hard to imagine where all these orange, red and gold leaves that form thick shoulders almost four feet wide on either side of the road once clung. Dappled sunlight is brilliant among the leaves and mottled up and down the linear geometry of the tall, pale trunks standing at slight angles almost crowded as far back into the dense wood as you can see. Branches from the trees closest to the road curve high to form a canopy over it. It is a cool day, not cold, but not warm. It is jacket clime, nice weather for moving in no particular hurry down a lovely, soft, dirt road through a beautiful wood. In another life – a better life it could be argued – this would be your setting. In this life, it's just the background photo on your PC desktop, one you found on Google and stole, though without ill intent.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Music. Deep. To Busk or Not to Busk?

The Béla Fleck song Sunset Road sounds exactly like walking down a road at sunset. If I ever walk down a road at sunset, I'm going to hear this song. I'll probably hum it. If you're not familiar with Béla Fleck, you should feel a slight embarrassment and then you should remedy your sad state of affairs. Check out your favorite online music purveyor. Unless they are lame, you'll find several Béla Fleck albums listed. Buy all of them. Listen to them. It's a free country, of course. We can be lame if we so choose. Far be it from me to try to control your sad, deprived life.

As I'm writing this I'm listening to the playlist I've named "Deep." It's what I listen to when I don't want my mind to be distracted by lyrics or music that draws me in. It's mostly instrumental music. Right now it's Itzhak Perlman playing a forlorn violin. Well, the violin might not be forlorn, but the music suggests a certain forlornness. It's okay, though. It's just music. Now the Gypsy Kings are playing Love & Liberté. It makes me sigh. It's a beautiful song. See? The music hardly distracts me at all when I listen to this playlist.

I should quit my job and play guitar on the street corner. I could put out a cup and people could give me money. "I'm going to need a lot more than that," I'd say to them. "I have a mortgage, three car payments, kids in college, doctor bills. I'm going to need a hell of a lot more than that quarter." Hmm. On second thought…

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Bears

All the love you feel in your life becomes a bear on the big mountain. The bears relax and play on the mountainside as long as you live. They are brown, black, white, reddish brown or any bear color you can imagine. They start out as cubs and then grow as you feel love throughout your life. Many of the oldest are large, almost like elephants. Some never get very big. All the other bears feel a special affection for these, making sure they are fed and cared for. When you die your bear turns suddenly and runs as fast as it can up the mountain – all the other bears roaring in encouragement – lumbering breathlessly toward the bright light at the summit, excited to see what he or she will see. We're all bears on the big mountain, people, living together, waiting to run that final climb.

Hello, friends. I hope your bear grows today.

Later. Love.

What's Your Point?

Last night, while thinking, I had a thought. (I hate it when this happens.) Here is the thought: Humans are existentially troubled by pointlessness, it vexes us. We really need to believe that there is a point, a reason, a purpose, a meaning to life. The idea of some sort of afterlife fate that is shaped by what we do in this life is not only a crowd control mechanism employed by the powerful, it is also a common comfort for the continual pangs of pointlessness. But what if you don't subscribe to any of those notions? From whence, then, your point?

Most animals, as far as I can tell, seem to find the mechanics of life, the activity of staying alive, purpose enough. Animals seem content with this. I can only assume that our human imagination, the ability to posit worlds that aren't really there or to rearrange in our mind the world that is, leads us to some sense that real purpose must transcend this material world. Staying alive is too easy for us to be a purpose, a point. We've been there. We've done that. If we've already mastered the meaning of life, what's left?

Use your imagination. Dream your own purpose. Make up your own point. Just, you know, don't poke me with it. I'm just trying to survive over here.

Hello, friends. I hope you're pursuing your own purpose.

Later. Love.

Questions and an Answer

Have you noticed that all the birds fly away when you approach? It's a crowded sidewalk café and you're meeting your friends. There are birds on the utility wires, birds on the low roof's edge, birds pecking precariously among the feet around the tables. As you round the corner they all stop what they're doing, spring into that whip-snap readiness of muscle, prepared to light out. When you are close, within a few yards, they all leave in a startling flurry of wings. Are they afraid? Have you noticed this? Does it concern you? How do you explain it?

One thing is certain: It's a hot, pressed ham and cheese sandwich with fresh tomato. In tetã Paraguái we called it a "mixto caliente." "Sándwich de jamón y queso con tomate fresco a la plancha." If you eat it with a cup of hot tomato basil soup and a cup of black coffee, it will make you a better person for several hours. I cannot prove this, of course, but neither can you disprove it. Leave out the ham if you're haunted by piggy faces. It will still be wonderful. The secret is in the deliciousness and also the inherent virtue. Sometimes the answers to life's persistent questions are simpler than we imagine.

Lights flicker when you get close to them, especially when you're alone. Cats watch you pass, their hackles raising slightly. Second hands slow down on analog watches. Do you even realize these things? What do you suppose they mean?

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Against Conceptual Calliopes and Acting Thereupon

When I was younger I would posit positions and then build upon them in all directions the positing of connections with other positions like building blocks or dominoes. Often the final construct was beautiful. It was always mostly useless, but it was often beautiful. When you show your masterpiece of thought to someone and they lay bare with lucid efficiency the flaws in the construct, it's uncomfortable, painful even. The accumulation of these lessons can manifest as maturity and wisdom in a sufficiently healthy psyche. Of the building up of combinations of possibilities there is no end. One should not confuse possibility with truth, however. The more complicated the construct of multiplying uncertainties, the less likely that it is the answer. The ability to posit is more important than any particular application thereof. This matters because a proper respect for the dubious certainty of your pet theory for society will keep you from launching crusades, forming armed militias, causing collateral damage. Let's just posit one thing at a time. Let's talk about it. Let's weigh the pros and cons. Let's not get carried away. Have a cup of coffee. Sit here for a while. Put down the Kalashnikov.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Regarding Music and the Ubiquity Thereof. Also the Big Jam.

Music is everywhere now. It's in your car (satellite, AM/FM, CD audio, MP3 CD, MP3 through the AUX jack). You can carry it in with you (MP3 player, phone). It's readily accessible when you're at your computer or tablet (local music player, streaming audio). You can buy it right from your phone, computer or tablet and have it almost instantly. Some people are convinced that the awesomeness of modern convenience is going to destroy civilization, and I cannot argue with them, but I'm really enjoying it in the meantime. Even now Beck (Beautiful Way) has shuffled up in my headphones and I'm loving the way things have turned out so far. You can also play your own music, of course. Some of us are getting together. In the middle of the desert there is a grand piano and bench. You can sit down and play Bach or Bacharach. You can play jazz, ragtime or classical, country, blues or rock and roll. Bring a mandolin or a bongo drum with you. Someone might bring a sax or a Jew's harp. Bobby McFerrin doesn't need any instruments. Eddie Van Halen will be there with a custom Strat with a humbucker at the bridge and his old Marshall amp. I'm dragging a tuba through the desert right now, heading for the piano spot. I'm following the footprints and tire tracks of all the tour busses. I'm pretty thirsty and sunburnt, and this tuba is hotter than hell, but I have a fourth of a bottle of water left and I think I'm going to make it. I cannot wait to jam with you guys. John Popper just passed by in an old brown, bigfoot-style Suburban with no doors. He pointed at me, laughed, took a swig of something and gunned it, throwing sand in my face. This is going to be some kind of groove, you guys. I'm stoked and also a little light-headed. See you soon.

Hello, friends. I hope you're ready to jam.

Later. Love.

Judgment Day Anxieties

They pick a panel of people to judge you when you die, to decide your fate in the afterlife. If I'm lucky, mine will be Paul Simon, Steven Wright, Maria Bamford and Wes Anderson. I have no idea what judgment they will pass on me, but it's sure to be absurd and subtly amusing, and I think I could live with that. If they throw some wildcard in there, like Raven-Symoné, Wolf Blitzer Oprah Winfrey, then I might be doomed. I hope there's a chair and a glass of water. I hope you don't just have to stand there with a dry mouth as they interview you and then deliberate. Maybe there's a waiting room with crossword puzzle books or magazines. I hate most magazines, but you can always look at the pictures. Maybe the floor will be tiled with intricate patterns that you can stare into and imagine shapes and faces of people you knew before you died. Don't judge me too harshly, you guys. I was mostly bewildered and restless. I tried my best as often as I remembered to, I swear I did.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Why I Eat Here Now

Great white herons, a pair of them, cast shadows shifting across the uneven landscape as they glide in grace over the autumn marsh, soft shadows muted by a thin grey overcast low in the morning sky. Gently they light on the dewy grass at water's edge, folding wide white wings in beside them as they settle on lowering legs. The herons' arrival, however lovely, sends a couple of young turtles scuttling away with an almost inaudible slosh through the water's calm surface and down into the relative safety of murky marsh bottom, little widening circles telling the tale of their escape. The water is dense with particulates and unknowable tiny floating life so strange as to defy personification. The cloud-softened sunlight does not filter down far through the cool mire and one turtle, the smaller of the two, cannot see the thing until she is upon it, a strange, unmoving thing on the squishy bottom, like no fish she has seen. Unbeknownst to her, the thing is Winston Stanton, owner of a small sandwich shop in the nearby city. The turtle bobs in the murk and looks curiously at his black hair wavering in the water and at his expensive sunglasses. He is an unusual thing in the marsh, with his silk floral shirt and black slacks. She stares for a while, but he doesn't move, so she loses interest and swims lazily for the surface, breaking her forehead through to become a small, dark bump in the water as the sun pours through a break in the grey. The sandwich shop doesn't open that day, and people begin to wonder if something is up.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

A Metaphor in Which Life is a Road and Uncertainty is a Fog

Uncertainty is a dense fog that has settled over the road that is a metaphor for my life. I cannot see what is coming, not very far ahead. This is a simple metaphor to understand, of course. I can see this evening, tickets to a show with my Susan. I can see vague outlines of employment surrounding me, this occupation in which I find myself. I know birthdays and holidays are up ahead, the rhythm of regular things unchanged in spite of it all. I cannot see where this road leads, however. I cannot see the horizon, what lies between here and there. How long will we walk it together? When does it fork up ahead? I want to send out a scout, but that's where the metaphor breaks down. It's not a road, it's life. It's not a fog, it's uncertainty. Of course, we're all drifting in uncertainty, but I'm not even sure what the goal is anymore. Get healthy. Be financially stable. Be the source of help and support. And what else? Write? I've lost the words for now. Maybe they'll come back. Teach? I always thought I might, but I wonder if I have the energy to do something so new, to start over, to succeed again from the bottom up. It doesn't matter, I suppose. I've been able to eek out contentment at least wherever I've found myself in this life. I'll still have that talent when the time comes. Maybe all I need to know are the next few steps, the now, the day's work, this evening's show, a little sleep tonight. Maybe that's enough for a guy like me on a road like this, metaphorically speaking.

I'll try, I will, to write posts that sound less like sighs. I really want to. Bear with me, if you will.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Changes are afoot. Give them a hand.

They've redecorated my coffee shop. New paint. New tables. New chairs. New art. Gone the odd contraption on the ceiling above where my table used to be. It's a different table now, facing a different direction. I'm sitting across the room. The comfy chairs are newer, cleaner, a little smaller. The tabletops are square, not round. Same floor. Same ceiling. Same swirly, Seussian vent hood over the espresso machine. Same hanging light fixtures that never hang perfectly still, always stirring slightly at the whim of some ghost, the ghost of some whim, a movement of air or earth, the subtlest of sways that you have to watch closely to see. And I have. I've seen it and now I cannot but see it. Moving the least a moving thing can. Never still. Moving still. The people have all been painted and rearranged, except me. I do not change. I am timeless. (This is a recent development.) Outside the summer is slowly relenting, though not gone yet. In here it's a different place, made up of a lot of the same things and a few new ones. I wonder if they found my imagination or my soul while they were redecorating. I've mislaid them somewhere. This place is a good candidate. I've spent a goodly amount of time here. Maybe I'll glance in the dumpster on the way to my car, just in case. Do they have a lost and found here? You'd think I'd know, but so many things have changed. I like the new chairs better. Don't tell the old chairs, though. They've supported me through so much.

Hello, friends. I hope you're... well, I'm not sure. Happy, I suppose. Or at least content.

Later. Love.