caveat emptor

The Song That Knows the Score

Verse 1:
This is the first verse
It might introduce an idea
Or possible a girl
This is the first verse (first verse)
It must establish the groove

Chorus:
As the chorus
I repeat myself
When the music stops
There is only me
Strip me down and lay me bare
And you will see
That though I am alone
I am not afraid

Verse 2:
This is the second verse
We don't expect much from it
It is free to simply be
Remember that idea from the first verse?
Remember that girl?

Chorus:
As the chorus
I repeat myself
When the music stops
There is only me
I am free to move against
Images you have of me
I am doomed to freedom
Just like everyone else

Bridge:
I close my eyes
When I want to stop seeing
I close my eyes
When I don't see you

Verse 3:
This is the third verse
It is shorter, more to the point

Chorus:
As the chorus
I repeat myself
When the music stops
There is only me
I cannot remember
Where I hoped to go
I cannot imagine
Where I may have been

Repeat Chorus:
As the chorus
I repeat myself
When the music stops
There is only me
I could paint a picture
You would recognize
If I named the picture
You would understand

The End

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

News from Allgood. Most Important.

Sitting on the stone bench in the idyllic front garden arbor, I gloried in the damp cool of the morning and in the sight of the Birdwings silently lighting on and darting from the Jasmine blossoms. I wasn't typically the sort to glory in things, but the peaceful beauty of this place forced my hand. I gloried against my will.

A well-worn footpath in the grass led from the lovely little arbor up the sloping lawn toward the house, a massive, gleaming white, Colonial edifice hedged all around with rose-vine lattices and immaculately trimmed Hawthorns. I watched the side door, whose porch steps rose from the end of the path, for the familiar sight of Thom Allgood shambling out in that mirthful rush with which he always carried himself. I had come to the arbor this morning at seven thirty because he had something important to tell me.

"Important news. Most important. Must speak to you. Arbor. Half-past seven. Your Thom." That's all the note had said. I couldn't imagine what this "important news" ("most important") might be, but I knew not to get too anxious or excited. Thom was never on time, despite his constant rush, and his news was never terribly important.

Just a few feet in front of the bench where I sat grew a massive Tillawink, Mother Allgood's greatest pride in the world. It was majestic, I had to admit, with it's topmost spiral vines draping down like Goldilocks and fiery red winkblooms pulsing mildly to attract bees, and eat them. In the crook of the forked trunk lay a fat spider dragon, sleeping through the cold night and morning to wake in the heat of the day and scour the leafpods for bloombugs. With a son like Thom, Mother Allgood was lucky to have this rare, awesome Tillawink. A woman needed something, after all.

A slam of the screen broke the Tillawink's spell and I glanced up quickly to see the shamble begin. His red-cheeked rush was especially exuberant, and he had a paper in his hand, waving it toward me in unbridled excitement. He was saying something to me as he came, but I couldn't hear him at all from here. I scooted over on the bench to make room for him and waited for the news. "Most important," I whispered to myself. "Most important."

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

(originally posted 08/13/2008)

My Favorite Place to Be

I am my favorite place to be. And so are you.

"The wind was so cold," she said, "we wanted to hide behind each other. We wanted to die in the prime of our lives, to a heaven or hell of warmth."

I thought how I'd never known cold like that. Even when frostbite gnashed against my face, leaving a rough scar, I felt laughing danger and foolish boy alive.

"The sky was so blue it made us colder. It was piercing blue, deep like oceans." She smiled as she told the story, gloried in the extreme past survived.

There is a kind of post-traumatic elation that rushes the beats of your heart up against each other, tension climbing the muscles of your chest toward your throat like a laugh that has possessed you and lusts to escape into the mortal world. I clench my fists nervously and flex my fingers in shared enthusiasm, a contagion of energy.

"When the snow finally fell in giant flakes we turned our heads up and watched them fall from as high as we could see them. We let them hit our cheeks and melt. One landed on the bridge of my nose and a couple of drops ran like tears down through the hollows of both of my eyes."

No one ever loved her again like I loved her in that remembered cold and blue and snow. Sometimes I recall something she said or a story she told. Sometimes I get a familiar tingling in my fingers, a surge of old laughter displaced in my chest.

She was my favorite place to be. And so am I.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

(originally posted 12/09/2008)

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 me 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.

Meanwhile, in words used wrong,…

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.

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)

Dude Days

I used to be in a band called Beige Floyd. I think you could best describe our style as “Acid Easy Listening”, although some have called it “Country and Eastern”. We shunned classical notions of rhythm and tonality in favor of what we called “geometric relationships of frequency”. We used three drum sets, a harmonica, a rain stick, a washboard, a sousaphone and six electric guitars tuned to alternating parallel fifths to explore the spaces between classical harmonies and dissonant boundaries. Our one and only album, called “One Man’s Trash”, was a big hit among members of the band. The world was not ready for so radical a departure from the provincial, tribal beats to which it is accustomed, however, and so we had to disband about ten minutes into our first gig.

We have toyed with the idea of a reunion, but our members have scattered out to the corners of the city. One moved to Colorado. Occasionally I hear a new song on the radio and detect a hint of the classic Beige Floyd sound. It always makes me proud to have been a part of something bigger than myself, however briefly.

Oh well, life goes on. Things change. It’s like that line from the third song on “One Man’s Trash”. I don’t remember the name of the song, but the lyric says it all:

Life goes on. Things change.

Amen, dudes. Amen.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

(originally posted September 17, 2004 on my cogito blog.)

Whimsy

I remember Whimsy, how she would sit in the swing out back and we'd make up strange tales and laugh. I remember she always wore that ridiculous pink bunny costume and carried a bent wand like a senile fairy godmother. I remember the sadness that showed red in the corners of her eyes, only occasionally in the old days, but a little more as time went by.

And then Whimsy was gone. I'd look for her out by the back hedge where the gnomes used to hide, or over behind the shed where the bricks were piled into a fort, but she wasn't there. I wept for want of Whimsy many days, but, as all people do, I learned to cope.

Then I saw her, sitting at a bus stop near Ephriham street. I swerved into the left lane to turn and see her, but opposing traffic was thick. As I waited for an opening, I watched her. Her bunny costume was worn around the edges, and stained with mud up to the knees. She had dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. She was smoking a cigarette and staring down at the ground. I honked, but she didn't look up. I rolled down the window, as the bus approached in the thick traffic, and called out to her. "Whimsy!" She never heard me. She just got up and the bus took her away.

Who's to blame for Whimsy lost? The city streets are no place for Whimsy. She never talked about anything troublesome or sad, never a problem or woe. She laughed and we escaped, always only playing games. We both knew that. Then I became more certain, more blatant, less hopeful. I think she enjoyed the illusion more than I did. I came to fear it. I enjoyed the company, the art of the story, not the mystery.

I look for Whimsy every day, out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes I hear her voice, but I never catch a glimpse. Sometimes I wake up certain that she was just whispering in my ear, but she's not there.

If you see Whimsy, tell her I don't think we choose to believe or to doubt. Tell her some things are real and some things are not. Tell her...

Wait. No. Don't tell her any of that. Just tell her that I miss her.

---

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

(Originally posted on January 17, 2006 on my cogito site.)

An Exercise and Futility

There are people who don't feel this way, I know. Even here, in this coffee shop, there are people who feel perfectly welcome and at home. There are people who don't feel compelled to turn away quickly or to offer an apology every time they make incidental eye contact. I know this for sure, because I am one of those people sometimes. I can be something more than furtive and timid. But today I feel out of place and untoward, an offense to your otherwise acceptable and beautiful world. Sun pours in the window and illuminates the blessing of your smiling countenance. Sun glares in and exposes me where I sit, trying to hide, casting the shadow of my affront across the floor and onto your shoes. You stand shod on unholy ground. This music accuses me, and I know you are all only too kind and too benevolent to acknowledge the outrage of my presence. Did you ever feel obligated to evaporate? I would make your world whole and clean if I could only find the strength to open my eyes and release all my covalent bonds and disappear in merciful ionic dissipation.

It's all drama and overstatement, of course. It's fiction. At best today I'm feeling a little mellow and pensive. At worst I feel a little out of sorts, as though my soul might have gotten a little twisted and bent. I'm sure it will snap back and straighten out. It always does, eventually. In the meantime we smile politely and purse our lips, eyes foggy and eyelids heavy. We resist the springy pull of the fetal position and stretch our shoulder muscles and, closing our eyes, do our neck exercises and sigh in little popping circles of pain and relief.

"If you could live anywhere, would you?"

It's one of the questions that pops into my head when I empty it out.

"What have you got in your hand?"

That one always pops in when our hands are empty.

"What, then will you do?"

I will sing inside my head. I will name the clouds and then forget their names. I will watch the birds hop atop their long morning shadows. I will never give away my life. You'll have to take it from me.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

(Originally posted 09/30/2008. I'm feeling that way again.)

Points

"What is a six letter word for the collection of all points in three-dimensional space that are equidistant from a central point?" she asked.

"What are you doing the MIT Mathematics Journal crossword puzzle or something?" he replied. "It's sphere," he added.

"Really?" She seemed surprised. "Yeah, that fits."

"Yes. That's the definition of a sphere," he said. "Why?"

"That just doesn't describe a sphere at all to me. That sounds like a square or something," she put down the crossword and yawned.

"Words mean things, you know. That doesn't sound like a square at all." He smiled at her.

She pushed imaginary glasses into the bridge of her nose and, in her best faux-nerd voice, repeated, "Words mean something you know. Words mean something you know. Words mean something you know." He laughed in spite of himself. "Admit that it sounds like a square," she said, scooting over beside him on the couch.

"It does not sound like a square! A square is not three-dimensional and the points that make up a square are not equidistant from a central point! It's SO not at all a square," he said, a little embarrassed at the passionate raising of his voice.

She pressed right up next to him, her face just an inch from his. "Just admit that you're wrong and I'm right. I promise it will be worth it." Her smile was sly and mischievous. He could smell her hair. He could feel her rise and fall with each breath. She leaned forward, ever so slightly.

"Of course, you're right," he said softly. "I just get confused sometimes."

He did not regret it.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

(Originally posted July 25, 2006.)

Afternoon Haunts

It's an old, abandoned graveyard — tombstones cracked and mildewed, statues with black, lichen tears molder and decay — on a sunny spring afternoon. Butterflies and dragonflies in the warm afternoon breeze light on sepulchers and crypts. There is a different quiet than you might imagine among the graves, the soft buzzing and chirping quiet of the daytime meadow. It's a setting out place. All the ghosts have blown away across the field and are caught, flapping, in the highest limbs of the line of trees along the road. The reaper has shed his robes and is taking a dip in the nearby stream. It's a zombie picnic scene in the dreamy afternoon.

Paul sits at the end of the otherwise empty bar drooping like excess out of steam. More dust than you can imagine swims in the bright contrast of sun pouring midday through the small, high window beside the liquor shelves. A song you've never heard and won't remember when you hear it again plays reluctantly from the crooked speaker on the back wall, stiff wire snaking awkwardly from behind it to an unfinished hole poked through the cheap wallboard two feet below and slightly to the left. Paul is not in a noticing frame of mind but his blinking eye watches the slow journey of a single drop of condensation crawling down his glass to join its brothers and sisters in the sloppy pool below. Low self-esteem, I suppose, brings him here out of season when the place is lowly and sad. He's never felt adequate for evening, when nighttime raises the bar.

When the sun shines on my grave it warms my soul. The Greeks share one word, pneuma, for spirit and wind and air, haunted softly by the sweet scent of wildflowers on this waltzing afternoon breeze.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

(Originally posted February 27, 2008)

On Music Theory, Science, Religion and the Humanities

Modality in music is a formalization and systematization based on observations of musical mindset. Two octave scales containing the same eight intervals, heard in another mindset, can feel different in such a way that they push toward a different note for resolution, they lead the mind to two different destinations. These mindsets are modes of music. In our music today, we typically hear the Ionian mode, which we call the major scale, and variations of the Aeolian mode, which we call the minor scale. Dorian, Lydian, Phrygian, Locrian and Mixolydian are rarely heard these days, though you can pick them out occasionally with an astute ear.

Rock and roll music is as foundational to the culture of today as is Christianity. You may not be a Christian and you may not be a rocker, but you are, if you live in the Western World, affected by both in profound and undeniable ways. Even these influences converge into an inseparable synthesis. Rock and roll shapes and is shaped by Christian ideas. They are strange bedfellows, each trying to weed out the other. From the tension of these paradoxes spring wisdom, revelation and lyrics. Rock and roll will save your soul. It will never die. If we destroyed all the organs and smashed all the guitars, surely the rocks themselves would cry out.

Most anthropologists agree that hominid animals crossed over into what we consider humanity the first time one of them heard a noise and thought, "Dude, that sounded pretty cool," and then hummed it for the next few hours. The long-term survival of the species was guaranteed when the first toe was tapped. Today many work to answer the basic question, "What came first, the soul or the blues?"

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

(originally published 04/23/2007)

The Continuing Saga of Our Protagonist

The rain dripped drippily on our protagonist as he sat forlornly in the setting. The rain symbolized something, possibly oppression or some other idea that might introduce conflict into the plot, making it sufficiently interesting to encourage continued reading. "Sigh," the protagonist sighed, sighing. In the foreground something mostly unrelated happened, adding texture to the narrative. Our protagonist felt feelings, showed them on his face, moved in ways that betrayed those feelings. How would the conflict be resolved? What was the nature of the conflict? Who was our protagonist?

Meanwhile, in another setting, the antagonist performed ominous and threatening actions. This could not bode well for the protagonist. If these actions boded in any manner at all, they certainly didn't bode well. Not well at all, their boding.

Now we meet the love interest. There is sexual tension. You, the reader, can feel the sexual tension. It's very tense. And sexual. Feel it?

The plot thickens.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Jazz Life

Baggy khaki chinos, hands in pockets, and a tank top undershirt. Brown leather shoes, scuffed and scraped, have seen better days. Tan socks with all the elastic blown rumpled down low. Third day tousled bedroom hair and whiskers of black and grey, scattered red. Bleary-eyed shuffling down the sidewalk, muttering about fortunes misplaced. Where have they gotten off to? Sweat at the top of the back of your neck says the muggy late morning will become a sweltering afternoon. Better seek shelter. Better watch where you're going. Weren't there cigarettes last night? Have they all gone up in smoke? Mumbling, not looking, off the curb and into and across the street. Smell of coffee from some open shop door. Light traffic in the warming city routine, the threat of lunchtime pedestrians looming on the clock hands high overhead in the church tower. Birds pass through building walls, though surely not. It's a play of light and hangover eyes, red and throbbing. Somewhere a car horn blares far away, a distant rage swallowed by the urban vacuum. She wasn't there this morning. They were separated in the night. Enough spare change for coffee and then maybe you'll try to remember where it all went wrong. Might be hot rains in the evening, sizzling and steaming in another night. This is jazz life, my friend. This is where the saxophone kicks in.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

It's Beeping

I don't want to alarm anyone. I mean, I'm sure everything's fine. It's just that, well, it's beeping. It's beeping and this little light is flashing. It's probably nothing to be concerned about, you know, but, I don't know, it just makes me a little nervous for some reason.

When the little purple man came out of the ship a few months ago and asked me to hold it for him until he came back, I thought, "Sure. No big deal. It's small. I'll just keep it in my pocket." And I did. And everything was cool.

But now it's beeping. And this little light is flashing. I looked for a button to push or something (not that I'd be brave/stupid enough to push it, mind you), but there's nothing. It's just smooth with this one little light on it. And now it's flashing. And beeping.

Again, I'm sure it's fine. Still, I was wondering: Could you hold it for a while?

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Life on other planets. Everything is best sometimes.

Clouds like cattle, fattening and greying in the humid air, shuffle east in front of the sun, herded by a wind strong but not steady. Green leaves tremble below in the gusty indecision, pulsing alive when the light of day spills down through the shifting gaps. Lying in the soft but needly grass watching the changes overhead like slow frames of a passing film reel, I am overcome with the feeling that we all need different things. One plant's heaven is another man's hell. She is suffocated in his safe, happy place. He bristles anxiously at the exposure of her perfect, free, flowing day. One wants to settle here and one needs to move on. We are living proof, all of us, that there is life on other planets. There is only life on other planets. No two people share the same world. Meanwhile the ants crawl over my toes, plotting optimistically to remove the obstacle of my foot. A turkey buzzard passes in front of the sun, throwing my world into fleeting darkness. The clouds see none of this, stopping for a minute to graze on warming vapors rising from below while the wind is distracted. I know everything is best, just not for everyone at the same time.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

When I Think of You

When the cock crows loud at the day's first light
  I force myself from bed
When the breakfast's done and the coffee's cold
  I start the day's long work
When the days grow short and the evenings cool
  I reap and store the hay
But when the wind blows soft through the pine tree tops
  I stop and think of you

When the sheep grow warm in the heat of spring
  I shear their wooly coats
When the rain drips down on the kitchen floor
  I climb and patch the roof
When the larder's sparse and the lamp oil's low
  I ride the mare to town
But when the geese fly south in the dusky sky
  I stop and think of you

When the wood pile's top falls below the rail
  I sharpen dad's old axe
When the wind blows in on the long, cold nights
  I find and patch the gaps
When the spring's first thaw swells the little creek
  I break and turn the soil
But when I close my eyes or I draw my breath
  I stop and think of you

When the larder's bare
When the lamp's gone out
When the coffee's gone
When the walls leak wind
When the rain drips in
When the hay grows wild
When the sheep run free
When the soil packs down
When the fire wood's gone
When I lie in bed
I weep and think of you

(originally posted on my cogito site October 31, 2005)

---

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Sleestak

There was something terrifying about the sleestak from The Land of the Lost. They were genuinely scary, even though they were among the least threatening monsters ever. Nevertheless, when I saw them stumbling slowly out from behind rocks and trees, always in groups of four or five, my heart always raced. 'Run!' I thought. 'Run!'

"I was a sleestak," the old homeless guy said, his cigarette flipping up and down in the corner of his lips as he talked. "Back thirty year or more ago. I got paid twelve bucks an hour to wear that damn rubber suit in that hot-ass studio. Good money in them days. Worst job I ever had."

"Wow. A sleestak? Man."

"Worst job I ever had," he repeated. "Too damn hot in that suit in that studio. There was three of us, so they had to shoot all the scenes more than once if they wanted to look like they was a bunch of us. It took a long damn time. It was hot."

"So, tell me about sleestak culture. What did you guys do when you weren't chasing Marshall, Will or Holly?"

He took a drink of the coffee I bought him and took a long draw off his cigarette. "We stood around in that hot-ass studio waiting for our cue," he said. "They had coffee. Damn coffee. We was hot as hell, and all they had for us was coffee. There was this old water fountain, but it was dirty and warm. Hell if I'm drinkin' that. Couldn't bend over in them damn suits anyway." He eyed his coffee derisively, remembering.

"How did those crystal tables work? What was their power source?" It was good to talk to a real sleestak. I had wondered about these things for years.

"The tables with the little rocks on them? Damn those things. We had two of them, and neither of them would stand up worth a damn. If you brushed 'em with your tail they'd fall over and we'd have to shoot the whole damn scene again. Damn, I hated those damn tables. I tried to fix one once. Damn unions out there won't let no one do shit who knows how. Prop work? That's a better job. They didn't have to wear no stupid-ass rubber suits." He started digging in his dirty shirt pocket for something. He didn't find it.

"How did Enik learn to speak English?"

He just looked at me a little funny. He took a big drink, finishing his coffee. "You got a couple bucks?" he asked, putting his ratty cap back on and standing to go. I dug a couple of bucks from my wallet and he shuffled off, last survivor of a once proud race. He walked so slowly.

Later. Love.

Floating in the Deep Water

Many years ago a Japanese freight hauler in the middle of the Pacific Ocean had a strange encounter indeed. Miles from everywhere, they saw a dot several hundred yards off the port bow. Turning to port, they came quickly upon a small Chinese man in a loose robe, hovering in a lotus sitting position about four feet above the water. His eyes were closed. One of the men called out to him, and he opened his eyes and smiled up at them. They gestured to the man that he could come aboard, but he just smiled and waved them off, indicating that he was fine just where he was. They implored him nonverbally to board, but he politly refused, closing his eyes again. It was with great inner conflict that they went on their way, leaving the man there in the middle of the giant ocean.

"Opening my eyes, grandson, I saw a giant ship had come upon me while I was thinking. Quite a surprise, that was. Then men aboard, foreigners, called out to me. They were concerned for me, I think, and wanted me to join them. They believed I needed rescue. It took some persuading to get them to leave me be, but they finally left. Good men, those were, to have such a care for a stranger. I was troubled greatly that I might have caused them distress, but I soon put that out of my mind. I concentrated again on the wind, on the soft sound of the movement of the waves in the deep water."

"How did you get there, grandfather? How did you get back?" The boy wanted to believe his grandfather, but he was having trouble.

"So many questions. My goodness. Some of these are deep things, grandson, serious things. Too much for bedtime. Goodnight, grandson."

"Goodnight, grandfather."

In his dreams the boy was a fish, speeding through deep, cool water. He could feel the freedom and smoothness of movement. He dove deep and then, turning back, shot toward the surface. Breaking through, he left a giant arc of water drops behind him as he leapt high and landed, softly, in the lap of a kind old man. The old man laughed at him, patted his head gently, and tossed him back into the water to play some more.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

What It's Like

It's like a dream, the dream where I call after you and you don't stop, though I know you hear. It's like waking up with a nail driven through your chest and thinking, "But, I don't even believe in the hammer." It's like your hands drop everything they carry because your mind insists there is nothing you can lift or grasp for long. Have you ever been there, insisting your eyes are wide open when you've glued them shut? Do you describe with conviction the world you imagine as though you can see through your own eyelids?

Perhaps we should go away somewhere. Pack up everything we don't need and bring it with us. Leave the practical world to get by. I'll sit on the beach with you, though you know I hate the sand, and you can face me. We'll only tell each other the truth, nothing between us but the warm, salty breeze blowing in off the ocean. The sun will set and the moon will rise. The tide will ebb and flow. Can you hear the birds? Where have you gone?

Sometimes the familiar comfort of being unwell draws us into its cottony grey. I'm learning, that's all, to recognize the pandering lies of my own mind. I have wellness in my hands, holding on tight.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Packing-Derm (A Repost from May 1, 2006)

I'm getting rid of my trained elephant, Stan. I'll send him to some sort of preserve where he can live out his days in peace. I had high hopes for Stan, thinking he could really be something special, but years of training have failed to do the trick. He's mastered juggling the flaming chainsaws and riding the unicycle across the heavy-guage high-wire. He's achieved an FIDE rating of 1950 in chess and can hit the bullseye on an archery range 99.8% of the time. He only came in second at the regional spelling bee, however, forgetting the all-too-obvious second "n" in "brunneous". Also his landing is still very shaky on his triple toe loop. It's hopeless. We've worked and worked and worked on these things, but he's maxed out. If the show can't be perfect, I don't want to put it on. I'm sure Stan feels the same way. I hope he does.

So, now I've got to find something else to fill up the hours of the long day. I want to invent reverse skydiving, where you start on the ground and shoot up and through the open door of a plane flying far overhead. I have no idea how I'm going to do it, but that's never stopped me before. I should probably buy a helmet.

Goodbye, Stan. I'll miss you, old boy. You were always friendly and helpful, and you made the best ham and mushroom omelettes. Find a cow to settle down with and I'll come and visit you guys from time to time. I'll never forget you, and I know you'll never forget me.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.