caveat emptor

That Great, Good Someday

In that Great, Good Someday there will be no more pain. In that day we will gladly offer our everything to one another in exchange for anything or for nothing at all. There will be neither lack nor excess, only a boundless sufficiency, an abundance of just enough. You will kiss my lips and I will thank you. I will take your hand and you will smile. Men will grasp enemies in their embrace and release them as trusted friends. All the armies will surrender to each other, shake hands and then turn and carry the spoils of peace home to their mothers, fathers, children and lovers. In that Great, Good Someday brows etched with confusion and consternation will smooth and then crease anew with laughter. The lion will offer himself as food for the lamb. The four winds will stir and blow all heaviness away from everywhere, toward nowhere, a gale blowing only out and gone. The grass on this side will green and grow, soft and lush, and we will lay down together and sleep, the first night of forever. Dance, children, dance, and sing with me the songs of that Great, Good Someday.

Have you ever noticed all the beauty you've never seen? Look today into all the places you cannot see and your eyes will kiss your soul.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well. I'm just a sucker like that.

Later. Love.

Fate, Reggae and Whimsy

I am playing Scrabble with Fate. She is beating me badly, like she always does. She sits quietly with that troubling, knowing look. I haven't the  letters to form the words of my frustration so, seeing no better option, I pluck an "H" from my rack and turn "OURS" to "HOURS". Then she turns "MY" to "COLOSTOMY" with a triple word score for the "C", which also makes "CRAW" of "RAW" in the other direction. Then I "CRAWL" and she "XYLOPHONE"s. It continues like this until she has the last word and I perform the aftermath. "I am second," I tell her, "and you are next to last." Fate smiles.

Today reggae is playing from somewhere, and this feels right. Slow and rhythmic, simple syncopations on the downbeat, it takes no genius to feel reggae, to understand what is happening. Reggae tells you that good things are good and that bad things are bad. Reggae decries suffering and glorifies pleasure. It cries with you and dances with you. When you're paralyzed by the complex interweaving of the nuances of reality, listen to reggae. Don't think about it too much or you'll overrun it and leave it behind, you'll be bewildered and confused. Just close your eyes and count out the simple beat with the slightest nodding of your noodle. Everything is gonna be alright. Everything is gonna be alright.

Tomorrow I'm having footraces with Whimsy. I'm not optimistic about my chances for winning, but I hope at least to make Whimsy laugh.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

The Middle is Near

Most of the paths to enlightenment are too heavy for me. Everyone chooses their own path. He's into Mahayana. She's doing the Weight Watchers. Some of the brightest people I know have stopped striving for enlightenment. "This is all there is," they say. I wonder how they got so smart? I wonder how I could get that smart? Maybe I should stand on my tiptoes and hold my breath. Maybe I should put my knees behind each other. Maybe I should shave my head and follow the remains of the Grateful Dead around. "It's not the answer, it's the question, man," says the barefoot dude in the robe with the dreadlocks and the shades. Things always sound stupid when you add "man" to the end.

Then the prophet says:

In those days the clouds will wage war on the seas. Fools will trade apples for oranges. In those days seams will ride up in your hinder and you'll find no peace in repose. The buffalo will play checkers with the postmen. The rocks will melt and dirt will freeze and the heavens will default on their loans. Wise women will cry in the street, bemoaning consumer confidence and acid reflux. A child will say to his neighbor, "What has become of my innocence?" In those days hamburgers will be served without tomato. Porch lights will burn through the night. Van tires will all go flat. In those days the echoes of distant laughter will keep you awake all night. Then you will know the middle is near.

Thus spake the prophet.

Sometimes the alarm clock surprises me and I begin the day with a start. Seems like a reasonable way to begin something. Man.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well. Everything's cool.

Later. Love.

Talking the Wrong Talk When No Talk is Right

The world has been overtaken by undertakers. They did it for the word play, I bet.

That's not what I came here to talk to you about, but I thought you should know, nonetheless. And now, the wrong talk.

I came to talk about the sometimes, squish bones sigh into the chair, laughing or crying too softly to be for sure. Never to be for sure for sure. Do you ever think the think you cannot say, wrapped up in picture feeling, ideas no word can word? No right word can talk it? Looking up into the sky this way I am there, the world far below, waxy wings drooping and dropping to the welcoming ground arms, laughing all the way down because you'll catch me, soft and strong and splash below the surface you'll catch me wet and smile, like your eyes can only smile, no other eyes, you smile. This is why we fall, to be caught. Falling together I'll catch you and you'll catch me. It works that way. Oh yes, today it works that way here with us. Because I know joy will last as long as needs, until the last time, the final work no more. When I imagine the smoky day far away, the end of everything, I always imagine lips in a smile, a knowing wink. Then the end, just the way we thought. Then falling into the next. Catch me.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

On Having Recently Seen Frankenstein's Monster

Not long ago I saw Frankenstein's monster hitchhiking along Interstate 35. He looked like he was heading north, maybe looking for work, maybe just trying to get away. There's big empty country up north on I-35, plenty of space for a monster to get lost, to avoid the cudgels and torches of angry villagers. There are wide, flat plains for miles and miles, little towns where nobody ever goes, barn lofts to hide in and tall grass where you can lie and rest your tired boots.

He looked a little worse for the wear, haggard and ragged from too many miles, too few friendly conversations, dogged and anxious but with that same stiff forehead, resolute in giving no foothold to the sinking, final despair that brings travelers down, lays them in the ditch, feeds them to the buzzards. One wonders how he can hold on, wonders at his crazy resolve. Were I in his place, a victim of the madness of manmade reincarnation, an alien to the circle of birth and death and lineage we all share, I don't know that I'd want to keep stalking the shoulder of the highway, putting one boot clumsily in front of the other day after night after day.

But there he was, nature's special child, heading north on I-35. No one stopped to pick him up, of course. No one liked the look of him. No one ever had. But nature loves him, perversely fascinated by this new thing under the sun, this unnatural selection in an otherwise featureless sea of survival of the fittest. Rain and wind caress his stitched, scarred skin as he sleeps each night, more alone than you can imagine, the loneliest sleep of all time.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

A Proposal for Controlling the Gnat Population

The mad scientist wanted to isolate nature and nurture as variables, so he isolated the child away from all nurture and care from a very early age. The result, ultimately, was most unnatural. Where humans are concerned, nurture is nature.

There are many secrets to raising children successfully. I have discovered and/or imagined many of these over the years and I've written them down on various scraps of paper all of which I subsequently lost. Some of these secrets stay with you, in your memory, forever. Here are a few of them:

• Keep the child's head above water or the child will drown.

• Smile at them when you catch their eye.

• Only paint children with nontoxic, washable paints of bright and vibrant colors.

• If you throw a child into the air, wait to see if they come back down. If they do, catch them.

• Only sacrifice worthy children to the volcano.

• If they make you cry, try not to let them know. They don't need that kind of guilt. Also, quit being such a puss.

• When their unique individuality strays from interesting into disturbing, get them out into the real world to remind them how humans generally behave. It's easy to forget when you're isolated.

• Some people are your children and some people are the creeps and jerks with whom you drink and act a fool. Remember the difference and behave accordingly. Try to keep the groups separated.

• Everyone is a murderer or worse. If a stranger approaches your child, set them on fire (the stranger, not your child).

• Your child will stare at the sun. This is because it looks really familiar. This is because the souls of children come from the sun, where the absorb all the energy they're going to expend in their childhood before cooling into adulthood and collapsing into old age. Buy shades for them.

• If you do not hug and/or kiss your child in the morning, they will forget who they are and forget where they live and wander away and shrink and turn into gnats. That's where gnats come from. It's sad how many gnats there are in the world.

I have no idea how many of these are true. Better follow all of them just in case.

Hello, friends. How are you?

Later. Love.

The Simplest Explanation is Always the Most Plausible

I read a biography of Mark Twain once. "Why should I care about that?" you might be asking yourself. Well, it leads to a point I'm going to make below. Just keep reading. (Asshole.)

Mark Twain, it seems, was born during an appearance of Halley's Comet. The author made much of this because, as it turns out, Halley's Comet was also visiting when Mark Twain died. The author seemed to imply that some part of Mark Twain's soul, something inherent to Mark Twain, was brought to Earth by Halley's Comet and then taken back again when it returned. It's a neat, silly idea. Mark Twain, the comet man. I don't know.

The reason I mention this is because I want to draw a parallel. I have a similar relationship with storms. I feel more alive when storms are raging. I feel as though some portion of my soul lives in storms, howling all over the earth. It comes home to me and completes me while the storm is here, but it leaves with the storm and I am diminished once again, standing sheepishly in the mud, wet and insignificant as thunder rumbles faintly in the distance and then is gone.

The most obvious explanation for this is that I am Thor, the God of Thunder. I must have been banished here by Odin, my father, for some offense, my memory erased. One day, perhaps when this mortal body dies, my banishment will be over and I will find Mjöllnir, my hammer, and return to Bilskirnir, my home. There will be great rejoicing in Þrúðheimr and all of Asgard.

Feel free to come see me there. I won't forget you. I'll also visit you from time to time. Mostly in the Spring. You might want to keep an umbrella handy.

Hello, friends. How are you?

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.

Reflections on Water

I love the way the rain turns the parking lots and sidewalks and roads into poor mirrors, especially when it's still darkling outside in early morning because of the switch to Nightdark Saving Time. All the lights are reflected badly, ghost lights underground. They follow us around in the underworld, mocking our fuss of activity, our busy living. It's only an illusion, of course, a distraction for the mind desperate to think something, anything. The rain collects in all the lowest places, running always down and down and down, manifesting the underworld for all to see. Water is the window to the ghost world below. This is why we cry for the dead.

The weather factors heavily in my writing at times. It's one of my most reliable muses. The weather, after all, is always there. By the time a man is old, the weather is his best friend. An old man can sit for hours and commune with the weather, talk about the weather with other old men. It's one of the few things they have in common. "I remember the snow of '83." I remember it too. I loved that snow. I wonder where it is today?

Meanwhile the snow of '83 is crawling down the pavement outside, looking for the lowest spot, having found its way back to earth once again in the endless cycle of water. It's right outside the door, wondering what ever happened to you.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Party

We were fancy that day, all dressed up for a posh party. She wore her flowing dress of uncontainable happiness and I was in my heaven suit with the shiny shoes, dressed to the nines as people rarely say these days. Outside the afternoon in the city gardens was warm and moist, with thunderheads roiling themselves into a frenzy overhead. It looked like there might be a wedding brewing in the east plaza. There was rumbling and electricity and the threat of roses in the sultry air. "I wonder if they do," she pondered aloud. "They said they did," I replied, remembering vows I'd heard. It was May or September and birds waited nervously for what came next, crouched like tigers on trees and trellises and gazebos. Somewhere not far away a photographer was surely loading or unloading equipment into or from a minivan or hatchback car, uncomfortable from being dressed inappropriately for hauling lights and tripods and camera bags, dressed instead for a party to which he or she wasn't really invited, not like a normal person might be invited. We were dressed fancy too, having left the house that morning to go to a party. She couldn't remember where the party might be and I couldn't recall the occasion. We sat on the park bench and enjoyed our detachment from the wedding of strangers. We didn't even rise to seek shelter when the rain finally started. I took off the shiny shoes and squished my toes in the new mud. Her dress hugged her wetly and wonderfully as we talked and laughed. Somewhere people may have been wondering where we were, but surely we weren't the guests of honor. Surely the party would go on without us. The party always goes on, after all.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Trees of Blackbird Earth

There was a time when I suspected that the universe was really just a Beatles song. I have since learned the truth. [Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.] I have since learned the truth.

The silhouettes of blackbirds gather in the sticky leaflessness of the sapling outside in front of the windy horizon sky. They puff up in the cold and hunker in the way that birds hunker in the buffeting winds. Were I a blackbird perched in a windy wintry tree, I'd sing the long ancient birdsong of spring, just to remind myself. Real blackbirds rarely sing songs, however. They only complain loudly, offended by the affront of a world run by lesser animals. The clouds move by behind them impossibly slow in the frantic wind, massive barges carrying rain somewhere else, far away. Blackbirds do not flit, they lumber from tree to tree, always looking for that perfect perch from which to scream their disdain at the world. You would never consider kissing a blackbird full on the beak. They have no truck with us, and they do not like us in that way. Much though I feel for their plight, out there in the blustery wind, I refuse the demands of the blackbirds. I will not surrender to their mastery, giving them the world we won with the might of our opposable thumb. Let them oppose our thumbs if they wish, we'll win in the end. We'll not sit, complaining, in the trees of Blackbird Earth.

The trees of Blackbird Earth. [Yeah, baby.] The trees of Blackbird Earth.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Laudable, Reachable, Laughable or Remarkable

I like to keep my hands empty so I can clap or grasp, in case something is laudable or reachable. I like to keep my mouth empty so I can laugh or remark, in case something is laughable or remarkable. "Emptiness," I often explain to my disciples, "is potential. There is no potential in satiation." "But surely," some disciple might ask, "a satiation of one kind prepares us for potential of another kind?" I always send my disciples away eventually. Follow me or don't follow me, but don't question the things I say. I'm just making this stuff up. I refuse to defend myself.

I always keep money and keys in my front, right pocket. I keep my wallet in my back right. My office key card and cell phone are in my left front pocket. My back, left pocket, however, is always empty. Everything I've ever placed in there has been lost, abandoned or forgotten. That's why I call that pocket my "Left Behind."

It's a bright and sunny day, dear friends, but don't be fooled. Here in my city it's cold enough to paralyze you, shocked and frozen in the biting wind. You will roll up into a ball like an armadillo and scream silently until Hill Giants come to pluck you up, carry you to their caves, sit you by the fire, warm you with the theurgy of some arcane draught, and tell you stories of times long past. Their laugh, that of the Hill Giants, is like healing to the human soul. Always thank them for their kindness. Always call them friend. Always look them in the eye. They will save us all from this fell winter. Then they'll carry us back to our cars so we can do our various errands.

I always leave the last paragraph empty so it can say whatever you need it to say to you, in case one of you is laudable or reachable or laughable or remarkable.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Hobglobins. And meta-blogging. And also hobgoblins. And Susan and me in the post scriptum.

If you're going to hunt for hobgoblins hiding in your house - and you know you will eventually - make sure you wear a felt, three-pointed hat with a feather in the back. These are not at all easy to find in stores, but you really need one. Trust me. You can always make your own. Here's how: Get felt and other hat ingredients. Form them into a three-pointed hat, fastening everything together with something. Stick a feather in the back. Also it's important to know this: There is nothing a hobgoblin fears more than loneliness. Sad, isn't it? There's really no way to use this against them unless you are a monster. Here's another important point: Don't be a monster.

Lately I've been posting a lot about time and the end of the world. Also there have been great sweeping themes of personal loss and sadness. Why? I don't know. These are just the things on my mind. I wrote once about the danger of treating sadness as an object, something to be examined in the abstract, to be dabbled with as though it were not highly contagious. Why do I bring that up? I don't know. Why not? It's my blog. I can bring up whatever I want.

Today I'm talking directly to you, the reader. I'm not hiding behind a story or some dumb joke. It's just you and me. Here we are, in the third paragraph of the post together. Are you enjoying it? Would you rather I just told you a story? Is this what they call meta-blogging? Who are they, anyway?

I abandoned that paragraph. This paragraph serves as an awkwardly self-aware segue into the next one, in which I hope to bring the post to a close, tying it all together. Here goes.

There are no hobgoblins in your house. There are no hobgoblins at all. There is only the fear of being alone in the world, the fear that this is all there is. Really, though, this is quite a lot. If there were more to life then life would burst at the seams. Hobgoblins would pour out and infest our houses. No one wants that, do they? Not with the dearth of three-pointed hat retailers.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

P. S. - Here's a picture of my wife, Susan. She's more beautiful than I deserve, way out of my league. Seriously, look at me. (I'm the one on the right.) Thanks for stopping by.

End of the Line

The trees, they say, must see the forest for themselves. This is difficult, because they have no eyes. And you cannot describe the forest to them, because they have no ears. And so, though you would volunteer your services to them in your empathy, it is to no avail. The trees must see the forest for themselves. I would expect this to be plain to you at this point, but you are too distracted by cares and concerns to perceive the simple truth: You cannot see the forest for the trees.

When the end of the world came all the souls from the beginning of time had to stand in a long line, waiting to discover their personal doom. Somewhere, far up at the head of the line, some system or another was rewarding or punishing souls according to their merits or some such. It wasn't at all clear from the back of the line what was happening. We all just knew, somehow, that we had to wait in line for fate.

It took a long time. It took a really, really, long time. The line stretched off for miles over roads, across fields, over mountains, across bridges, along rivers, down into valleys and back up and out again, as far as the eye could see and farther still. We waited in that line for years. We didn't eat. Sometimes we talked to the people in the line ahead of us or behind us. We didn't drink. Sometimes we sat down in place, scooting along whenever the line moved. We didn't sleep. We were not hungry or cold or afraid or even bored. We just moved slowly along in line toward the end of the world and whatever came after. We were souls, all together in this line, at the end of the world.

Now it's been almost three hundred and fifty years, and we're still in this line. Are we getting near the front? I have no idea. Neither does the girl in front of me. Nor the man behind. It's a lovely day. We're atop a mountain now, looking down to where the line passes into the shadows of the valley below. None of us question, though you might think we should, whether perhaps the line never ends. It ends. And then destiny.

Is this what I expected? Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

One For the Fools

Once I was the most conservative of conservatives, convinced of black and white and good and evil and heaven and hell. The journey out of that was not short nor was it easy, but it was a journey I had to take, even though it meant, in the end, losing even my religion, and I was more religious than you can possibly imagine. I left huge chunks of my personal identity, real parts of who I was, behind me, and it has taken a long time for me to become, if even I have yet, a whole person again.

People come out of religion and conservatism for many reasons. For me it was not about a desire for personal freedom, though I treasure the freedom I now feel. For me, the ideas and ideals and tenets of the identity into which I grew from childhood - an identity that was shaped by a situation and environment that, like all children, I did not choose - were always and increasingly at odds with what I have come to recognize as my own natural, organic idea, ideal and tenet: I believe that people, all of them, are valuable and good.

Though some of you might also believe this, I know that many of you do not. That's okay with me. I think people are allowed to be wrong. It doesn't lessen their value or their goodness, just their quality of life.

From first hearing him speak and reading his words several years ago, I saw in Barack Obama a kindred spirit. I believe he and I share that same faith, a faith in all of you, in all of us. I hope more and more people can come to believe.

He's not perfect in the traditional sense of the word, I've seen this myself. Nevertheless, I love him. And I love that people like us, fools though we may be, can win such victories in this world.

Hello, friends. How are you today? I'm great. I can't stop smiling.

Later. Love.

A Defense Against the Lack of Magic in the World

It's a new year for witches. Is that true? I don't know. I heard that somewhere. If so, Happy New Year, witches. I could never be a witch because I don't believe in things. I'm a skeptic. Also I don't look good skyclad. Mostly, though, it's just because I don't believe in things.

On some darking evenings and on some kindling mornings winking grey and moist into the sky the absence of magic in the world howls at me like an accusation, as though it is all my fault, this flatness of our spherical world. "Consider wonders magic never made," I say. "There is a mundane wonder in the world, magic notwithstanding. Close your eyes and feel it embrace you viscerally. Open your eyes and watch it looking at you from across the room, smiling eyes more natural than super, ordinary as eyes ever have been, wonder blinking in kinship with your mundane soul."

"Words. Just words," the world sighs back silently, hitting you with the full blunt force of quiet, motionless inanimation.

Meanwhile you breathe and writhe in this chemical dance of vegetable and animal growth. "There is no life but us," we think to no one else. "There is only everything, but nothing more."

November in the hemisphere of my cultural identity is a vegetable month, tangible as earth beneath your fingernails. Harvest fills our hands and lungs and bellies, reminding us of more than we were, less than we will be. It is time now to love what is more than what isn't, seeds not spirits, no goblin on the wilting bloom. The wind would drown us in cinnamon and soil breath except that we need it. It keeps us alive, because we are indigenous here, perfectly suited to the deluge of air. There are places in the universe where there is no November, places where the air would kill the earthen vessels of our souls. Here there is vegetable harvest and animal plenty, a November for us, a paradise for such as you and me.

When the lack of magic howls at me, digging deeper these caverns in my heart, I hold my breath and slip under the water. I squish my toes into the mud. I open my submerged eyes and stare at the refraction of light bouncing off the blue sky. I cast these mundane spells to ward off the things that aren't but long so much to be.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

P. S. - You may notice the logo in the margin of my blog. This can mean only one thing: It's NaLogoMo, National Logo Month, again. Here are the rules: Post the logo on your blog. Then, for a whole month, you don't have to do anything. Post. Don't post. Write. Don't write. Just do whatever. You can do it. I believe in you. Welcome to NaLogoMo '08. Thanks for stopping by.

Weeping and Sowing

How long has it been since you saw a butterfly? I can't remember. It's been a while, I think. I hope they're okay. Was there a butterfly plague? Had I known they would all be gone I'd have paid more attention to them when they were here. Have you heard anything about the butterfly plague? Do they know what caused it? Were there any survivors? Suddenly I feel sick in my stomach with the notion that we'll never see butterflies again. They were so beautiful, don't you think. Do you remember them? Can you still picture them? We should have taken more pictures of them, more movies and such. How will we describe them to our children so that they know? It was like two paper hearts sewn together, dancing in the air. There were more colors than you could imagine, wonderful patterns and designs. Yellow and black and orange and red. Flutter by, butter fly. Goodbye.

Once upon a time there was a girl with a seed to sow. I never saw where she went, but I've noticed new strange blossoms we've never seen before. Do you ever ask yourself who she was and why she came? Sweet fragrance on the wind whispers her forgotten name, telling the story of the girl. She had a seed to sow.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Fools Make Magic of Us All

The way she holds her head when she types can tell me, if I pay attention, that she believes art is neither a particular product nor a particular activity but a method. Anything done this way is art. Anything produced by this method is art. I've seen tears as art. I've seen art in silence, in the way one stands or walks. The difference is in the how and in the why. These shape the what. Wherever I am and whatever I do, I am only and forevermore interested in producing art. Function is peripheral and superficial where I live. From now until forever after I am only and always in my house, and this is how we do things here. All are welcome here but we do not compromise on a few things. Not here. Not in my house. Here we do art.

The Hope for the World walked in and, sighing a little, dropped with a groan into a chair. She wondered for a moment what this grit was under one fingernail, turning over and reviewing hands calloused and dry with good use. Her pants, stiff denim stained with soil, were frayed at the cuffs but sturdy and fit, except for one snag torn an inch and a half just below the knee. The cafe buzzed around her, dense with noise and life, unaware, as was she, that The Hope for the World sat tired and hungry, waiting to be served. Somewhere, in the future, we will sing songs for her, remembering her with fond tears of gratitude. Now she wishes she could have showered after work, her stomach grumbling under her sweat-stained shirt. In a cafe like this, however, people don't notice too much. Here, she thought as the waitress, napkin-wrapped flatware and menu in hand, led her to a table, you can just blend in have a bite to eat, maybe a little coffee or ice water. The Hope for the World thanked the waitress and slid into the little booth alone with a sore little sigh. Outside, in the parking lot and beyond, the world needed her unaware.

There is no practical magic. Close your eyes and run as fast as you can. Do it. Do it now. Fools make magic of us all.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

A Space Walk and a Dog's Life

Space walks leave no footprints. Personally, I don't really consider it walking. It's more like swimming. It's like falling in no certain direction very slowly. Space walks require special shoes. You have to watch where you step. If you step on the sun it will mess up your shoes. Let's take a romantic space walk, just the billions of us. What do you say?

Dog the cat walked slinkily along the sidewalk, staying close to the buildings and ducking behind carts, chairs, bikes and, finally, a newspaper stand from which one could obtain, for free, a local circular detailing cultural events that were going to happen two weeks ago. Dog the cat lay under the paper stand and stared out at all the passing shoes. Being a girl, Dog the cat might be expected to have a fascination with shoes. Being a cat on the city streets, however, she was mostly terrified of shoes. As she lay there she wanted badly to leap out, teeth and claws, and latch onto the flesh exposed by a pair of scary red pumps that strolled slowly by. She even rocked forward, muscles flexed and ready, and pretended she was going to do it. In the end, however, she relaxed and yawned. Normally Dog the cat was hungry, starving even. For now, however, Dog was sleepy and satisfied thanks to a generous handout of tuna fish given to her about an hour ago by the man. The man was a busboy named Hector, but Dog the cat didn't know that. Dog the cat didn't know anyone's name, and she certainly didn't know her own. Hector had given it to her. Dog. Hector fancied himself a funny man. Had she known and understood her name and who was to blame, Dog the cat would have peed on the spot where Hector always sat waiting for her. She did not know, however, so she considered the man a friend and would often pet the palm of his hand with her back. Dog the cat went to sleep under that paper stand for almost an hour. When she woke up it was nighttime, and she set out for the alley where mice live.

Did you know that NASA, when it was designing its Mars lander, actually studied falling cats? NASA was interested in how cats seemed, almost always, to land on their feet. I just made that up. I have no idea if this is true, but it sounds like it could be true. We could totally convince people that it's true. What do you say?

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Love.

The Ruins

Democracy until we're all a little smaller, a little hungrier, a little dirtier. You might have to give away half of your bacon, lettuce and avocado sandwich. Maybe two thirds. Hands clasped across the world, holding onto each other, cannot be so clean as they once were. What if, in the end, there isn't enough? What if the mean isn't sufficiently nice? We will all speak the common language of food and sun, water and wind, too cold and too hot and sometimes just right. In the end it is enough for me to have tried, to have lived, to have died like everyone else. Far in the future, when all of this is forgotten, we will gather in a field to dance. We will see each other in everyone's face. We will break bread that we never imagined and drink strange wine, so strong it makes you warm, so cold it make you sigh. We are natives, all of us, of this place. Today we are afraid, but joy is up ahead. We will dance for joy in fields of forgetfulness.

If you cannot forgive, here is what you do: Run yourself through with a blade. Set yourself ablaze. Leap in indignation from the mountain peaks, spilling your ire onto the rocks below. Cut your wrists and drown the world. If you cannot forgive do yourself a favor. Die in your justified rage. It's for the best, believe me.

Today I am searching in the ruins of our cities for clues. I wonder to myself, "What ever happened to us?"

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Love.

P. S. - I just noticed that this is the 666^th post on this blog. I just thought I should tell you in case you're freaked out by that sort of thing. Read at your own risk. (Caveat Emptor.) Thanks for stopping by.