caveat emptor

The Unexplained

I brought enough for everyone if anyone wants some. Anyone? There's plenty. I made it myself. I think it's pretty good. How about you? No? Are you sure? I brought enough for all of us, just in case. No? Okay. Well, that's cool. I'll just hold onto it, then. Let me know if you change your mind. There really is plenty.

Dirty water, is that all we are? The planet is 85% water, or something like that. We're 70% or 90% water too. I forget the actual number. There's water in the dirt and water in the plants and water in the animals. Just dirty water, really. If you evaporated all the impurities out of this world you could drink it. Dirty water, that's all we are.

Sometimes I get tired of these hands full of emptiness, so I put all the emptiness into my pockets. Then I look and there's more in my hands. So I put that into my pockets. And then again. My pockets are so full of emptiness at this point that I fear they may burst, spilling emptiness everywhere. I think I might start canning it and storing it in the cellar. I wonder how long it will keep down there. "That's where I keep my emptiness," I'll tell the curious children. "Would you like some? I've got plenty. Why are you running away?"

Hello, friends. I should probably explain. Yes. I definitely should.

Later. Love.

Cold Notice and Lies About Eyes

I've given up on the ineffable. I cannot effin' figure it out. I've moved on, instead, to smaller mysteries. I wonder, for instance, why my car tells me when it's 37 degree Fahrenheit? My car doesn't tell me if it's 35 degrees, or 12 degrees or even four degrees. My car pops up a little message on the dashboard screen, however, if it's exactly 37 degrees outside. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with this information, so I've started logging it into a little ledger. I record the date, the time, the mileage and the temperature, which is always 37 degrees Fahrenheit. I assume someone is going to ask me at some point, when I go in for service, "How often have you driven this car in 37-degree weather?" What other reason could there be? So, like a good car owner, I log it into the 37-Degree Ledger and keep driving. I may not understand it, but I'm sure it's important. Probably it has something to do with Kevin Bacon. I don't know.

I haven't opened my eyes in almost six months. I've just been staying in the ruts. This is not meant to be understood as a metaphor but a literal fact. Opening your eyes always costs something and I've been a little short lately. I certainly hope I typed this correctly, since my eyes are supposedly closed and all. It's not true, of course. I could see that you didn't fall for it.

The 37-degree notification feature on my car is, I'm convinced, a bad implementation of someone's idea. This cannot be what they intended, whatever the specification said. Read through the specs, engineer. Ask yourself this question, "If I were a normal human being, how would I want this feature to work?"

Hello, friends. Cold?

Later. Love.

Irrational Concerns and Updates

Sometimes I am overcome with irrational fears, like my fear that every animal I cannot see has gone extinct. Today I'm concerned about manatees. Has anyone checked on them lately? Are they still there? Have you seen them with your own eyes? I hope they're okay. I worry so much about them, out in the water like that, all alone, without phones or email addresses. Do they have healthcare coverage? Have they put anything away for retirement? Has anyone checked their teeth lately? Do they brush and floss? How could they? There aren't any drugstores they can access. It's a troubling situation and I'm not sure what we can do about it. If you're near where the manatees live and you have a few minutes, could you check on them for me? I know they're probably fine, but it would be good to know for sure.

Okay. Breathe. Let it go, Scott. There's nothing you can do about it right now. Think about something else. [sigh]

People are constantly asking me, "How is Chuck, your Gnome friend?" or "How is your wife, Susan?" People want to know these things, but I'm usually too distracted by some nonsense to give a proper update about the people in my life. The answer is that Chuck is recovering well, though still struggling to keep food down, and Susan has an ogre friend visiting from somewhere far away and they have been making quite a racket drinking, smoking pipes and laughing loudly at jokes in some language I cannot identify out behind the shed every evening this week. I think that's right. I have troubling keeping the details straight, but I'm mostly sure that that's right.

Seriously, though, have you seen a manatee with your own two eyes recently? I'm really worried.

Hello, friends. I hope you, and the manatees, are well. Here's hoping.

Later. Love.

Fixing The World, Part One

I've just concluded a detailed inspection of the world and I'm afraid we have some work to do, people. You wouldn't believe what I found out there. I'm listing some of the top issues that come to mind and I'd like for people to volunteer to handle them. Don't make me start assigning them to people, people. If I don't get any volunteers, I'll do it. Mark my words.

Here's the list.

• Several of the mountains in North America are out of plumb by a degree or two.
• Trees all over the Pacific Northwest are lopsided and depressed.
• The ocean floors need to be swept and mopped.
• The Sahara needs dusting.
• I saw two one-legged birds in the Ireland. Fix them. If you cannot find the legs, perhaps you could just make one normal bird out of them.
• There's mildew building up around the edges of the planet's core. It's starting to smell.
• Kanye West is getting out of hand.
• Antarctica is crooked.
• Several people need to lose weight. I won't name names.
• The swordfish need sharpening.
• Bigfoot is constipated.
• Pirates.
• Many aspiring actors have wide noses.
• There's a toilet in Sydney that's confused about the Coriolis effect.

Let's hop to it, people. The world's not going to fix itself.

Hello, friends. I trust you've made your selection(s).

Later. Love.

My Secret Blog and (finally) My Golden Globes Recap.

On my top secret blog for which only a very few elite people have the URL I have just completed a six-week-long series of daily posts in which I have detailed my beliefs, principles, ethics and morals. Everything I think is spelled out there in perfect clarity. I've wanted to sort through these issues and come to a clear understanding of them for some time. For too long my mind has been a jumbled wreck of trivia, song lyrics and punch lines. Now, on my secret blog, I've worked through it all. I'd love to go and read it and become acquainted with myself, but I'm not in the elite group that has the URL. Are you? Do you have connections over there? Could you get me in?

Meanwhile, back on the farm...

I suppose I should do a Recap of the Golden Globes. I've been procrastinating, but I'm tired of all the anxious and irritated emails begging for my opinions of the winners and losers and, of course, the fashion. So, without further ado, here's my recap: I didn't watch the Golden Globes, but I heard some of the dresses were very nice. You heard it here last. You're welcome.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Aren't you?

Later. Love.

My Song and Words Used Wrong

I've been asking myself what it might sound like if I wrote songs and sang them, my own words and music, my own voice and play. I have to admit that I'm not sure. I don't know what it would sound like. I think it might surprise me, but I don't think it would disappoint me. Not much, anyway. I think I'd be pleasantly surprised and intrigued. Having lived through all these years in all these places with all these people has affected more than I realize, I realize. I've always assumed, I think, that I am something other than my life. But I'm not. I bet I'm not. We'll see. One day, maybe, we'll see.

I have to punch in because I'm doing clockwork. I'm paid timely. Sitting at my desk, my thoughts speed secondary, but the day creeps hourly. Straining toward the future, I am present tense. When it's overtime I punch out, my mind slipping through the nightshift, becoming myself again. Before long the sky is less daily and I am retired. Colliding with the bed I hit snooze. Bedtime passes quickly, though, and too soon light pours heavy through the window. The prospect of new day dawns on me, and I go into morning. Time to put my clock face on again. I think I need a daybreak.

If I ever sing my song I'll share it with you. If you don't like it, pretend you do. I'll be able to tell. You're not that great at pretending. I'll appreciate the gesture, nevertheless.

Hello, friends. It's a new day, but don't worry. It won't last forever.

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.

The Fate of Humanity and How We Should, Therefore, Live

One day humanity will be destroyed by a race of superior beings, and this will be their superiority: They will have two opposable thumbs on each hand, one on the lateral side, like us, and another on the medial side. We will be helpless against their pollical dominance. Other terrestrial primates will see this as justice, I suppose. We've lorded our single thumb over them for millennia. We had a good run. Our conquerors will be impressed with what we were able to accomplish despite our limitations. They'll write songs about us, songs with complex finger-snapping rhythms, as is their way.

We should enjoy the time we have, my friends. We should be alert to each pleasure and joy that comes along, experiencing them actively, with our minds and hands and senses and wills. We should attack each sorrow fiercely and stab it hatefully in the heart and rend it limb from limb and pound our fists in the pools of its blood and scream profane curses at the memory of it. We should dance enthusiastically to the beat of every song, however stupid we might look doing so. Of course, I don't really mean all of this. Some of us prefer to sit quietly through it all and just smile or sigh from time to time. Still it's true. It's all true. Dance the dance of your deep stillness. Do your dance. Kill the killers. Love the lovers. All of that. I don't know.

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

Later. Love.

The Sun and the Snow and Here We Go Again

The sun doesn't know it's a new year, though the new year is all about the sun. It's the star of the show, as it were. There are no seasons in the sun, however. There's just fusion and heat and light and gravity. It's about our relationship with the sun, not about the sun itself. It's not inherent to the sun, is what I'm trying to say. Shine on, O sun. Shine on the wicked and the good, on the wicker and the wood, on the slicker and the hood, through the gaps in the rain clouds.

We've had snow here in Texas during this holiday season. It's been a welcome climate change. Climate change won't kill us, I guess. Not all of us, anyway. It's cold here today right now, but it will be August before you know it, and we'll all curse the heat. The heat here in August will make you question the theory of a loving god, though you'll find the idea of hell more plausible. Grass withers and ice cream runs lukewarm over your fingers if you're not quick about it. I saw a hawk perched on a snow man a couple of weeks ago. I saw a coyote in a snow drift near the new subdivision, over by the schoolyard where my son goes sometimes to dance with his friends. I've seen things you wouldn't believe, but I won't tell you about them. I've told lies in my life, but I've never intentionally killed another person. Snow falls and you cannot stop it, but it will be gone in the morning.

A little revolution once in a while is good for a planet. Here we go again, round and round the sun. And there's nothing the sun can do about it.

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

Later. Love.

Clever Lies and Unwilling Metaphors

I constantly have to remind myself that well-said often masquerades as true. Sometimes that resonance you feel with the words of another are just an appreciation of form, a purely aesthetic vibe. Don't let your passion for words become credulity. A little salt, just a grain, almost always helps, metaphoristicallywise.

This is a segue. Trust me.

Standing on the highway, thumb out, I begin to realize that the highway is just a metaphor, that I'm just figurative, a figure, illustrating something else to someone else. They are the real and I am just a symbol. When the car comes, therefore, I get in, signifying something else, I suppose. The driver asks me where I'm going. I say forward. He pulls out and turns on the radio. After a few minutes I ask him if he knows what we stand for. Like, to the real world, I clarify. He says if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything. I've heard that one before. It's clever, but that doesn't mean it's true. Frustrated, I turn and shoot the bird at the sky. Factor that into your symbolism, reality. Whatever you hope for me to signify I refuse to stand for it. Looking over at the driver guy I wish to myself we were a mixed metaphor. He just keeps driving, heading forward.

Hello, friends. Seriously, I think we're all going to be okay. I could be wrong, but I have this feeling.

Later. Love.

Penultimate Words. Love in the Time of Rockets.

I have developed, in the past five minutes, a curiosity about the penultimate words of dead people of note. It occurs to me, extremely recently, that last words are often words of regret. In those cases, I suspect, penultimate words are often regrettable words, or the expression of regrettable actions. Of course, I am making certain assumptions here. No doubt there are many times when penultimate words are orthogonal to history, irrelevant to legacy. My interest in this topic is quickly waning, soon to be forgotten altogether. As a last gasp of attention span, I am wondering what my penultimate words will be just before I die. And now it's done. I've lost interest in the question.

Moving on.

She asked me a question about love in the time of rockets. I asked her if she meant modern times, space exploration and whatnot. She said not exactly, that she meant the future, light speed and whatnot. Would people still love each other? I said I didn't see why not. She said she was worried about it. She rubbed the tip of her thumb over her other fingertips, back and forth, a nervous habit of hers. I said I think it will be okay. I told her I'm not even sure there ever will be such a time, a time of rockets. I've long suspected futurists are wrong about this. She smiled at me but seemed unconvinced. The hard, night rain thumped on our tent like a million falling stars, tiny and wet falling stars. This was in November, just before she left for the penultimate time.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Aren't you?

Later. Love.

Still Life of Fog, Hawk, Me, Rabbit

Fog means the painters didn't finish in time this morning. If you blew it away you would see the colorless outlines of this world that they make up as they go along, made fresh daily, wet paint. If you're not careful you'll get the world all over your hands and it will never come off, until they repaint your hands tonight while you sleep.

This morning I watched, just visible through the fog, a hawk light on a freeway exit sign. It made me curious, once again, if birds ever wonder to themselves, "What the hell is this thing on which I'm perched?" Exit signs, billboards, telephone poles, microwave relay towers, traffic lights, golden arches, street lights. What are these things? Perhaps, however, birds aren't so scientific or observant. Maybe they wonder the same things about trees and craggy mountain cliffs. "What is this world?" they wonder. "Where did it come from? Is that a rabbit?"

I'm sitting on this chair by the window, looking out at the dissipating fog. I know what the chair is, and I know what the fog is. I even know what a microwave relay tower is. I mostly wonder why. And sometimes I wonder what other animals wonder. I'm so easily distracted by all the things I know and all the things I wonder. I wonder what a rabbit thinks as the ground disappears below it, sharp pain of talons in its back and sides, just before everything goes black. Mark that rabbit off the list, boys. We won't be painting him tomorrow.

Hello, friends. How are you?

Later. Love.

How I Feel. Also the CEWQOTDQ.

Today is one of those days in the midst of funk when I feel as though a load of lightness has been heaped on top of my ponderous burdensome heaviness. The heaviness is there, but lightness was piled on above it. The net result is a ponderous lightness of spirit, like hippos on their tip-toes, like elephants filled with helium, floating dangerously around the room, bumping into things, smiling nervously. I am a happy wreck today, enjoying the warmth of my life on fire. Even my metaphors have mixed feelings about everything. I'm as happy as the Hog of the Month at the slaughter house, prancing proudly with my blue ribbon through the chute to the sausage barn. If I had wings I'd fly up until the gravity stopped and float breathless forever at the edge of falling. I don't know. I just don't know. But I'm smiling unknowingly, and that's better than not smiling.

And now, the world-famous Caveat Emptor Wednesday Question of the Day Question:

If you could meet any one person from history and ask them any one question, what would you wear?

Leave your answers in the comments or send them to me using telepathic powers. If you're going to use telepathic powers, please don't snoop around in my mind. I haven't cleaned up in there for a while.

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

Later. Love.

Google. Mary Oliver. The Place. Mary Oliver Again.

Google is becoming more and more powerful. They are getting closer and closer to the ultimate feature, the one for which I have been waiting for years. Very soon now Google will be able to contact me and tell me what I'm looking for. Most days I just sit for hours staring at the empty search box, wondering what it is that I really need to find. Google is working furiously to fulfill this need for me. Anyone can tell me the answer. Google will tell me the question.

I don't know. I keep remembering what Mary Oliver said, "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." I believe that. I do. And then I think:

In the fading negative image that I see emblazoned on the back of my eyelids when I press my eyes shut and block out the distraction of everything else, I can see the disappearing visual memory of the place I came from, the forgotten place from which I started this journey. I have a suspicion that I have to find that place again, but it's hard to tell from this vanishing silhouette of colors on black where the place might be. I think there is a large tree, and a hill in the distance. Maybe a river bank or the shore of a lake. I can't quite make it out. Maybe I left the directions for this life, if there were any, beneath that tree. If I ever find the place again, I wonder if the instructions will still be there.

And Mary Oliver says: "Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--over and over announcing your place in the family of things."

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

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.

Philosophy Gets Lucky and When God Was a Kid

The first human philosopher is not remembered. His pursuits were not appreciated by the other members of his primitive tribe. Sometimes he would wonder to himself why his people did the things they did. This distracted him, made him slower in hunting and skinning, in building a fire, in repairing a shelter. His neighbors thought of him as, "the one who isn't as fast as everyone else" and "the one who isn't always listening when you talk to him." The first human philosopher never mated, and his propensity for distraction died with him. His siblings carried the recessive trait, however, so philosophy was not altogether lost.

When god was a kid sometimes he got so carried away playing in the afternoon that she forgot to make the evening begin. Afternoon would stretch on for what should have been days and days. Eventually people would become afraid and run to their homes and god had no one to play with. Then he would remember the evening and the sun would set. Eventually she fell into a pattern and the afternoons and evening marched in rhythmic succession. When god was a kid, though, sometimes he would forget.

The seventy-first human philosopher was the first to win a mate and pass on his genes. It was late one night, around the fire. He was sharing some of his ideas with the first bohemian chick. One thing led to another and philosophy finally got laid.

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

Later. Love.

On Fish With a Rhyming Aside About Where/How Things Live

A fish is not a pet, it's a decoration, a piece of furniture. Having a fish tank in your house is like having a curio cabinet or a china hutch or a shelf of shot glasses from various gift shops around the world. A fish never sleeps with you, snuggled up at your feet or in the crook of your side. Sleeping with the fish is, in fact, a euphemism for death. No one needs a fish, man. Not even a woman on a bicycle. I don't know.

Feet live in shoes. Words live in ears. Hands live in pockets. Pressure lives in peers. Stars live in heaven. Shadows live in light. Trees live in dirt. Colors live in sight. Kisses live in mouths. Waves live in seas. Dust lives in sunbeams. Squirrels live in trees. None live forever. Let's live today. We'll live completely, while live we may.

It's not that I don't like fish, mind you. I'm not anti-fish. I'm just pointing out the shortcomings of fish as companions. You'll never teach a fish to play basketball or volleyball, for example. They're too afraid of nets.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Lies and Sponsors

I have a confession to make: I don't know how to read. I've been faking literacy for all these years and I just can't to it any more.

I have another confession to make: That first confession wasn't true. And neither is this one.

If, ladies and gentlemen, you'll look through the tiny windows on the right side of the plane, you'll get a stunning view of the Verizon Grand Canyon, brought to you by Verizon Wireless. Verizon and the Grand Canyon: Two American Treasures.

My mind, this morning, is like a stone skipping across the surface of a quiet pond, thrown by a pensive boy in a hoodie, jeans and sneakers, a boy whose energetic meandering and playful exploration has brought him here to this quiet pond, a new place he has discovered, a place to which he can lay claim. The loneliness of boyhood is so deeply hidden that even boys don't see it in themselves. A boy's soul is tasked by evolutionary forces to walk as quickly as possible away from every other soul and to find in the wilderness a place to stand alone, and then to defend that place from all intruders. Only those invited can approach. Only those welcomed can return again. No one can stay forever. The top of a high hill is a good place. Or a clearing in a grove of trees. Or the bank of a quiet pond, the kind of pond you can send stones skimming over, skipping from expanding ripple to ripple to ripple, like my wandering mind.

Boyhood is brought to you by Citibank. Boyhood and Citibank: It's about growth.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Man of Fall and Gary the Groundhog

Autumn is upon us. The nights are getting longer. It's like summertime for vampires. This is the time of year when the leaves fall and they don't come back until the fall leaves. It's jacket weather, casual people bundling up in flannel and fleece and sweaters and hoodies. I'm not sure what the dressy people wear. I bet it's expensive and uncomfortable. Suckers. My love for this time of year is much storied, though only on this blog. Last time I checked there was still no Wikipedia page about me.

Today I want to tell you the story of Gary the Groundhog and his struggle to get high-speed Internet access for his colony. Gary was a great hero among whistle-pigs, one of the great marmots of our time. He didn't ultimately succeed in getting the Internet access, but just filing the paperwork is pretty remarkable for a lowly woodchuck, if you think about it. But don't think about it. Surely you have better things about which to think.

I really have nothing to say this fine autumn day. The trees are getting bare, the bears are getting sleepy, the nights are getting long, the willows getting weepy. The skies are getting grey, the evenings getting colder, the birds are getting out of town, the kids are getting older. This time of year makes me thing of endings and beginnings, of growing up and growing old and growing closer and growing roots and growing restless and growing corn. Not sure what corn has to do with anything.

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

Later. Love.

Forces of Evil in a Bozo Nightmare

Whenever the lords of the underworld and all the arcane spirits of the forest come together in his palace of stone to ask David Bowie what he would have them do each day, all the world cringes and we pray silently that he will not unleash his terrible minions against us. David Bowie is subject to mystical whims and passions and there is always the danger that we will anger his eccentric sensibilities and pay the ultimate price. An old gypsy told me once that a poster of Elvis Costello on the back of your bedroom door will ward off David Bowie and his capricious servants. I don't know if it's true, but I keep it there just in case. One does what one can to protect his home from evil, after all. May David Bowie never come for you, friends. Amen.

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

Later. Love.