caveat emptor

Cosmic Sandwich and Not Porn

The universe is a chicken salad sandwich, and our world, everything we are, is but a poppy seed on the roll, one poppy seed among the many. Everyone is worried that someone has made the sandwich for a reason. "There is only one reason to make a sandwich," they say. But I wonder if maybe we are just a sandwich for sandwich's sake. "We will become one with the gods," some say, believing the old maxim that we are what we eat. "If we are what we eat," one man suggested, "that implies also that we are what eats us." Is that true? I cannot work it out. We are both the sandwich and the sandwich eater, perhaps. But I forget myself. I am not the sandwich. I'm just one tiny part of one tiny poppy seed here on the bun, looking up at the sky at night, wondering if there is a mouth.

And now, an unrelated issue. It has come to my attention that some people cannot see my blog because it is blocked by their filters. Why is it blocked? Well, these filters seem to feel that my blog is a porno blog. I'm not an expert in porn, but I am fairly certain that this blog is not porn. If this is porn site, it is not a very good porn site. I never post nude pictures of myself on this blog, nor sex movies of myself. Not here. I'm very careful about that. If I knew the appeal process I would contact these filter managers and argue with them that I am not a porn site and that I should be removed from the porno list and whatnot. I do not know the process, however. I'm just a poor, dumb, barely-legal college girl gone wild, after all.

Hello, friends. I am pretending that we are all well. Maybe we are. What do you think?

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.

Escargot For It

I cannot imagine a creature more intimately engaged with the path between Point A and Point B than a snail. As humans, we can and often do pass through the space between without even noticing it. We are preoccupied with thoughts or phone calls or text messages or simply planning our escape. We can hardly tell you where we've been, what we've missed, all the rough and rugged ground between there and here. I'm not saying that we're wrong, and the snails are not accusing us of any transgression. We're all good at different things, you know? Snails experience the path really well. That's their thing. I'm sure we're good at something too. No one is condemning us. I am, however, advocating that you take one day - today for example - and live your life like a snail. Take off all your clothes and press your stomach to the gritty ground. Slide slowly from your home to the grocery store or to your office or to your therapy sessions. Take your time. Stop often and probe the air with your gross little eye stalk thingies. Leave a trail of slime from your front door. Do it. Let me know how it goes.

Hello, friends. I hope you are well. Are you?

Later. Love.

In a Hurry. Doggy in the Window.

Not much time this morning for thinking or writing. I overslept, or underawoke, or something. Barely time for oatmeal and coffee and a quick hello to the world. Barely time to hear Louis Armstrong sing All of Me. Whenever I hear Louis Armstrong scat sing it reminds me of my notion that it would be difficult for Germans to do so. Scat singing doesn't go well with hard constant sounds. Anyway, no time for such notions this morning. I'm running late, just like that white rabbit in that story.

You know, it's very hard to work with this outside the window.

Distractingly cute. She's, like, three feet away from me. I could reach out and pet her, if I broke the window.

Also, that's my Prius. She's cute too, in her own way.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Motophor

Have you ever seen one of those freestyle motocross events where a guy takes off from a steep ramp at high speeds and jumps to ridiculous heights while performing acrobatics and then, in midair, if everything goes as planned, he regains control of the bike and lands safely and gloriously to great adulation? Have you seen any of these? Perhaps, like me, you're not really a fan of such activities, but you've seen them before while switching channels on the television. Have you seen them?

Well, if you've seen them, perhaps you've seen the guys who completely let go of the bike in midair. While jumping they take their hands off the handlebars and their feet off the pedals and their butt off the seat and they fly above their bike, propelled forward with it by the same Newtonian laws of motion. They are completely disconnected from the device on which they depend for a safe landing. This disconnection lasts only for fractions of seconds, and then they reach out and grab the bike, pulling themselves back onto it to prepare for a proper, non-injurious landing. Can you imagine that kind of dependency on another object? Can you imagine letting go of it and then having to get it back? Do you think you'd be able to let go?

Once in a while something goes wrong and the rider realizes he isn't going to get the bike back. When, in those quick, short seconds, he comes to this conclusion, the rider pushes away from the bike in the hopes of minimizing the damage caused by the landing. It will hurt more to land entangled with the bike than it will hurt to hit the dirt alone. So, he thrusts away from the bike as well as he can and tries to land so as to prevent serious harm. Things are going to be bad, but perhaps he can still avoid the worst of it.

Can you picture all of this?

For me, right now, I feel like I'm at the apex of the jump and I've lost the bike. I'm reaching for it, but I can't quite grasp it. It's not where I thought it was, or I'm not where I'm supposed to be, or something. I haven't completely given up hope of finding that handlebar in the next half of a second, but I'm beginning to worry about the landing.

Hello, friends. How are you today? Do you ever feel like this?

Later. Love.

Things You Can Count On [sic]

There are, believe it or not, things on which you can count in life. To be more clear and less correct, there are things you can count on. Here are a few:

• If you buy the right kind of soil, put it in the right sort of vessel, plant the right species of seed and provide the right type of care, a beautiful flowering plant will grow. It's true. You can count on it.
• If you drive to the Grand Canyon with a watermelon in your car, park as close to the edge as they let you, walk the remaining distance with the watermelon under your arm and throw the watermelon as far as you can out into the abyss, the watermelon will fall into the Grand Canyon and smash to tasty bits on the rocks below. It's true. It will. It's completely reliable.
• If you cover your hair with hairspray and then light a match and toss it into your hair you will set your hair on fire. Count on it.
• If you pour cold milk into a tall, clean glass, add just the right portion of chocolate syrup or sweetened cocoa powder and then stir appropriately, you will have a perfect glass of chocolate milk. No other result is possible.
• If you marinate a five pound beef roast in Italian dressing for about four hours, preheat a properly working oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, heat a bit of olive oil in a large, nonstick, cast iron skillet, sear the roast well on all sides, wrap the roast - fat side up - in foil, pouring the drippings from the skillet over it, place it in a large, shallow baking pan, and put it in the oven for at least six hours, maybe a bit more, you will have a delicious roast of beef. It always works.
• If you put one hand softly on the side of the neck of a woman who loves you in the right way, put the other on the back of her hip, pull her close, and kiss her softly on the lips, she will kiss you back. I have found this to be foolproof.

I'm sure there are some things I have missed. If I asked you to list more, I'm sure I could count on you to do so. I've learned this about you. I'm not asking anything of you, however. I'm just happy you stopped by.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

P. S.: Though any of you who are my Facebook friends or Twitter followers have heard, I feel, in the interest of disclosure and by way of explanation of any change that might become apparent in the mood of this site, that I should let you know frankly what is happening in my reality. Yesterday we learned that Susan, my wife, has cancer in her esophagus. We don't know yet the extent or stage or even type of cancer. Tests begin tomorrow to discover all of this. So, the future has become even more of a mystery to us than the future always has been. So, there it is. That's what's happening. Thanks for stopping by.

"Because It's There" and Other Popular Notions

We were pondering magnetism. Is the metal drawn to the magnet, or is the magnet drawn to the metal? By the time we realized that the attraction was mutual, the moment had passed. Life is like loose gears tumbling and bouncing all around. Occasionally they mesh, but mostly they just bump into each other and make a lot of clanging noise.

Did you ever notice that they never show Rocky, from the Rocky movies, walking back down from anything. They show the struggle, inspirational accompaniment blaring, to reach the top. They show the climactic release and elation. They never show, however, the slow dissipation of joy and energy after the celebration. They never show Rocky walking back down, probably alone. I wonder if he feels proud, or just a little silly. Why does the climber come back down from the mountain? Because he's there.

In the first paragraph is used magnets and gears to represent ideas. This practice is what writers call "metaphor". Make up metaphors of your own to express the same ideas. Discuss them among your group members. How does changing the physical objects change the dynamic of the ideas? Be prepared to give examples to the class.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

By Way of Explaining my Dearth of Communication

Sorry if I've been uncommunicative lately. I'm in thinking mode, brain going as fast as it can almost all the time. Makes for fitful sleep, and my temporal lobe seizures have picked up again, like they always do when I get thinky. (Maybe it's just that I notice them more when they actually interrupt active thoughts and don't notice them when I'm vegging mentally. I don't know.) I've actually come to sort of enjoy them, like an old friend or an inside joke. "There is great mystery afoot!" they whisper to me. It makes me smile. They're so silly. Everything is just everything, nothing more. Silly, silly seizures.

Not much to say today. Just tapping my toe to the jazz. It's jazzy. I know you can't hear it, but you can imagine it. Hear it now? Jazzy, no?

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Tea Sippers and Paint

"What's your favorite style of painting?" he asked, sipping his tea. (NOTE for new readers: Here at Caveat Emptor, "sipping tea" is a sure sign that a character is an arrogant asshole. Why? I don't know. I actually like tea. In my writing, however, tea sipping is almost universally a sign of asshatery.)

"Finger," I replied, chugging my Red Bull and then belching loudly. (NOTE: I don't actually drink Red Bull. I also do not belch often. It's been know to happen, but it's not like a signature thing of mine or anything.)

Have you ever tried to juggle paint? Not in tubes or cans or anything, just big splashes of paint? It isn't easy, let me tell you. Nevertheless, someone has to juggle the paint. We cannot leave the paint unjuggled.

How will we abide the tea sippers of the world? We will dance our feelings. We will journal our fears. We will open up and let our emotions juggle. We are the dried leaves of humanity, crushed and brewed for the enjoyment of the gods, steeped in doom, damned to be sipped forever.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

An Important Post

I'm here today to tell you a few things and I want you to pay attention because these are important things. Are you ready? Let's roll!

There are so many tools that empower you to talk to people these days. They also empower you to see what these other people are saying. None of them facilitate listening, however. None of them promote understanding. The ability to talk to hear/see other people talk is a good start, though. I'll admit that. On the other hand, we always could do that, just a lot slower. Now we can ignore or misunderstand each other much faster. Of course, we can also really communicate, really connect faster. We can understand each other faster. It's true. The ability to listen and to understand have to come from us, however. The gadgets cannot help us there.

I've been thinking a lot about the wonders of modern technology, like robot bread makers and cars that run on corn and phones that can tell you what song you're hearing. "And where was I when I first heard this song, phone?" I would ask.

"You were in the airport in Chicago, Scott."

"And how did the song make me feel, phone?"

"It made you feel hollow and cavernous, as though you were plummeting far down to certain death inside your own chest, Scott."

"Ah, yes," I would say. "I remember that now. Thank you, phone. You're a good friend to me."

"And you to me, Scott."

I have to be honest with you at this point: I really didn't have anything important to say. I apologize for misleading you in the beginning of the post. I just wanted to grab your attention so you didn't wander away. It was a cheap trick and I shouldn't have done it.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

A Traditional Form of Joke

Life has a funny way of teaching us lessons. Have you noticed this? The other day, for example, life dressed up like a clown and taught me the value of friendship. Funny, right? Life is a little creepy. Have you noticed this?

Now, the joke proper:

A priest and rabbi walk into a bar. Sitting at the bar, drinking a beer in moderation, the priest asks, "Friend, is it true that you can't eat pork?"

"Yes," the rabbi responds, sipping his own beer. "It's true."

"Wow," responds the priest. "That's too bad. Pork's pretty good, you know. Have you ever tasted it?"

"To be perfectly honest, my friend, I've tasted it a couple of times. It's pretty good."

"It sure is," the priest says.

"And let me ask you, since we're asking questions," the rabbi says, "you're supposed to be celibate, no?"

"I am supposed to be and I am."

"And I wonder, have you ever tried...?" The rabbi raises his eyebrows knowingly to the priest and winks.

"Well..." the priest smiles and looks down into his beer, "...to be honest, I have... in the past you know... a couple of times."

The rabbi nods and takes a sip of his beer. "It's better than pork."

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

P. S. - I decided to delete this last line because it makes it less of a joke and more of a story. As a joke, it should end with the punch line.

Scene From a Doctor's Office

We are waiting in line at the checkout desk at the Orthopedist's office, waiting to handle paperwork and payment and such. By we, I should clarify, I mean me and my 15-year-old daughter, Robyn. It is a Pediatric Orthopedist, which always feels funny to me because my kids are older. There are all these little babies and toddlers and grade-school children running around. Meanwhile I'm there getting Robyn's cast removed from her broken pinky, the one she broke playing basketball about a month ago. She's almost six feet tall and... well, that just looks a little funny at the Pediatric Orthopedist is all I'm saying. I can tell she feels a bit awkward about the contrast, so, as a good father, I decide to needle her about it.

In front of us at the desk is a mother with a tiny two-year-old girl. The clerk says, "Would you like a sticker?" The girl would indeed like one, apparently, so she picks out a panda sticker.

When it's our turn, I ask Robyn, "Would you like a sticker, Robyn?"

"No," she says, smiling in that embarrassed way. She starts fiddling with the stickers, rearranging them and straightening them in their little rack.

"Are you sure you don't want the turtle one?" I ask her. "It's cute."

She picks it up and looks at it. "Oh," she says, "it is a turtle. I thought it was something else."

"It's very definitely a turtle," I respond, furrowing my brow and wondering how should could think otherwise.

"You're very definitely a turtle," she quips.

She has a point.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

P. S. - On the way back to the car she remembers that Jason Mraz looked like a turtle on Saturday Night Live last Saturday. He sang from the side of his mouth and craned his neck crookedly, tilting his head as he crooned into the microphone. Just like a turtle does. She has a point. Thanks for stopping by.

A Post, Like Others Before It

The world always makes more sense in the morning. By evening I'm usually wondering, "What the hell was all of that about?" In the morning, though, everything is good. The sun pours through the window and paints the top half of my computer screen as I type. In the bright illumination the dust on the screen is unmistakable. The bottom of the screen, shaded by the window sill, looks much cleaner. It's a lie in the dark, though. It's just as dirty as the top. I can see this because it's morning time. By tonight things won't be so clear. By tonight everything will unravel. It's okay, though. Nighttime is not for the sensible. Nighttime is for the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!” Do you know who said that last part? Do you know Jack?

I wanted to become a fan of humanity on Facebook, but humanity is not an organization, business or brand. Even if it were, I'm not an official representative of humanity. So, a page cannot be created and fandom cannot be declared. Not on Facebook anyway. Here at Caveat Emptor, though, you can be a fan of whatever you want. Here I'm a fan of humanity. And also of coffee. And also of you. I'm a fan of you. But not on Facebook. Everywhere else, but not Facebook.

When I was writing about morning and evening in the first paragraph (see above) I was reminded of Douglas Adams's thoughts about Sunday afternoon in the book Life, the Universe and Everything. He called it "the long dark tea-time of the soul," a play on "La noche oscura del alma" or "The Long Dark Night of the Soul", a theological treatise by the 16th-century Carmelite mystic, Saint John of the Cross. According to Adams, Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged, was an immortal who hated immortality. To keep himself busy he set out on a project across space and time to insult everyone in the universe - in alphabetical order. Adams says of Wowbagger, "In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you've taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark tea-time of the soul." It's a funny thought, I think. It's like describing a sigh. Quite masterful, really.

At least it seems so this morning.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Regarding the Local Saber-toothed Cat Issue

Texas is overrun with saber-toothed cats, giant ones with fangs an average of twelve inches long. (Some say the black ones have longer ones, but I think that's a myth.) These cats have come back from the Stone Age to haunt the fertile pastures of Texas because time is all messed up everywhere. The Law of Time has been broken and now anything can come back from the past, even disco or variety shows. Everyone in Texas has been killed by the cats so far, including me. Twice. What are we going to do about it? We're going to be content with our lot in life. Time was we didn't have to worry about such things, but time is no more. As for me, I'm hoping to get a song and dance routine onto the Gong Show. Beatniks from out of history smoke hand-rolled cigarettes outside, sipping espresso, digging all the cats and daddies. Rain falls this morning, into the freezing air. Time was such sights would thrill me in arcane ways. Time will be again.

I had a conversation with love while putting away dishes. My back was sore from standing too long, stooping to lift and such. Kitchen timers screamed orders at my full hands, asking me for more and more. Love told me that hard water requires biannual replacement of rubber stoppers in toilet tanks. I made note of it and washed my hands to retrieve hot dinner from the oven, burning my knuckles in distraction as usual. Love told me to buy a new coffee maker. When I hit the sheets at night, I can hardly stay awake long enough to put the television on sleep for an hour. Sometimes I wake with the remote still in my hands. In the morning I stubbed my toe on love, sitting where I left it by the bookshelf instead of stowed behind the door in the closet, where love belongs.

I lied about the cats in the first paragraph. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "No, it's not a lie. It's a metaphor." Sometimes, however, a cat is just a cat is just a lie.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Snippets from Among Everything in the World

Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón sit in a dim bar in a small town in Mexico, smoking cigarettes and drinking dark Spanish port. That's where they are in my mind, anyway, when I picture them. Some part of me rejects the notion of Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón sitting at a McDonalds in the international terminal at Chicago O'Hare airport, eating an Egg McMuffin and a Sausage, Egg and Cheese McBiscuit and drinking small fountain drinks. I also could not picture them at Luby's cafeteria. Nor could I picture them at Buffalo Wild Wings watching college football. To me they are in Mexico, in a small town, partaking in ancient vices, spinning complex yarns. I can't help it. I'm just silly like that.

One of the regulars at the coffee shop this morning, the impossibly tall and impossibly thin girl who always stands by the window to wait for her order, is crying. She's trying to look like she isn't crying, but she is crying. You wouldn't know it unless you looked at her face, but it's unmistakable. She's crying and sniffing, trying to hide it. I wonder what is making her so sad. It's something I would never do, to go and ask her what's wrong, to try and make her feel better. I assume she would not welcome my becoming more than an anonymous face she sees each morning, that she would rather deal with the people in her own life, her own people, about such things. Still, there she is. She's crying. I hope she finds some way to feel better. I hope she's not crying tomorrow.

I'm getting close to understanding the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. When you understand this, segues become unnecessary. There are no non sequiturs. You can see how everything flows from everything else. We are all together, you, me, Alfonso, Guillermo, the tall and thin crying girl. We all flow from one another, follow one another, necessitate one another. Without all of us, there wouldn't be any of us. I'm starting to understand it, though I don't know if I could ever explain it to the rest of us.

Hello, friends. How are we today?

Later. Love.

Misplaced for a Time

When I saw the grand piano in the middle of the gigantic, well-appointed hotel lobby yesterday I wished what I always wish in such situations. "I wish I could remember enough Spanish and played piano well enough to sit and belt out an ironic rendition of the Eagles song Desperado in a melodramatic Spanish baritone." Why? Who knows.

I've spent the week in tourist luxury, where everything is palatial and abundant. Everything is lovely and elegant. It's really starting to get on my nerves. I'm having the exact feelings of rebellious disdain that, while attending a week-long conference in San Diego a couple of years ago, inspired me to write this:

Gods once walked these halls of stone, long ago, and men and women of great renown shed blood to water the fledgling seeds of their legacy. And here am I, coming such a long time after, following the whims of small concerns. The echo of those old footsteps still drowns my patter, and the vaulted stone around me shouts my insignificance at me like an accusation, as though my presence offends. If I could, I'd rise up like a titan and rend these old bones, casting their dismay into the dark, boiling sea. I am here and I am now. Whatever boasts these ghosts have etched into these walls, they cannot claim this feat of mine. I am here and I am now. No one has written my story. I am free.

If you're hiding in the shadows, come out and walk with me. We'll cast off these old bones and burn down this old world. We'll let the flames light these low places, chasing all shadows far away. We'll tell our own tales to the world, rooting them in truth but embellishing them with lies. We'll clothe ourselves in greatness and cast our echoes out into the ages ahead, for others to tear down.

There's just something in my nature that can't abide such materialistic gaudiness for long. It grates on me. One day I'll crack and start tearing the fine wood trim from the walls of an opulent hotel meeting room called "Ravenwell Salon" or some other ridiculous name. I'll kick off my shoes and start to pile the broken wood in the middle of the room.

"Sir," the presenter will say nervously into his lapel mic, "what are you doing?"

"Let's build a fire," I'll respond, tearing off my shirt. "Let's build a fire and dance around it!"

People will start to close their laptops, grab their packets of conference information and move slowly to the door. Soon security will show up to take me, but I won't go quietly. I'll brandish the broken leg of a Queen Anne console table at them and growl.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Love.

Caveat Emptor Blog Entry #652

What would you write if you knew no one would read it? And I'm not talking about the PostSecret sort of honesty. PostSecret posts, even when anonymous and not followed by a stream of "Look what I just posted on PostSecret" emails or blog posts, are still meant to be read by someone. They're aimed at the world and shaped by that aim. I'm talking about real secrecy. What would you write if you knew no one would ever read it? Please write it in the comments. (Just kidding, of course.)

To me Obama is a kind of tragedy playing out in front of us. It makes me sad to think of him. I'm not one who believes much in the "is/ought" idea. "Right or wrong, there IS a certain personality type that can succeed in politics today and therefore that is the type of person, right or wrong, who OUGHT to run for office." I believe in change, but I think it's hell for those who have to go through it sometimes, when the stakes are high and the players are powerful. I believe, and some of you will surely disagree, that Obama has many qualities that would make him a much better political leader than any we've seen in a long time. I believe, and some of you will surely disagree, that he is sincere in those qualities. I do not believe, however, that the current political system is friendly to those qualities. I see a system trying, and succeeding to some degree, to tear him down. It's a tragedy. To me, anyway, it's a very sad thing. But then, that's me. I'm like that.

And now, here's what I would write if I knew no one would read it: I have pig thumbs for Freibesh Plubacity.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Love.

It's Friday

They should make a reality show called Ultimate Crusade and in it teams of adherents of different religions should compete in physical challenges and trivia competitions to see whose religion reigns supreme. Each week one member of the losing team could be "Burned at the Stake" (a light-hearted ceremony in which someone is kicked off the show.) They could have a "Second Coming" show at the end of the season where everyone comes back and jokes about what happened during the season. It could be hosted by someone really irreverent, like David Spade. Whenever someone gets kicked off the show, he could smarm, "Where's your God now? Bu-bye."

The Thursday FOOD FIGHT® went pretty well. Crullers were maligned, but only slightly, and their honor was later defended. The TFF® has been such a successful money-maker for Caveat Emptor® through the years that I've been thinking about starting a new Friday feature called T?IF: Thank ? It's Friday®. It would be an in depth and depressing agnostic-themed religious debate, with no holds barred. After thinking about it for a few months, however, and after doing a couple dozen extensive market studies, I've decided it's probably not a good idea. It's a terrible idea, in fact. So, instead, I'm just going to blather at you on Fridays. You're welcome.

Here's a question about which I was wondering yesterday: Have you ever "known" someone on the Internet for years and then discovered that they are actually the opposite sex than you thought? It's the kind of thing that can only happen for that long on the Internet. In real life you usually discover that sort of thing before one night is over. This is always very awkward, and you have to think back and wonder, "Did I ever say anything to let on that I thought he/she was really a woman/man?" Has that ever happened to you? Maybe it's just me. When you call yourself something like "Cavort" or "Boingo" and you never talk about your love life and never post pictures of your self, how are we supposed to know? Maybe it doesn't matter on the Internet.

Hello, friends. What sex are you today? (I'm a dude.)

Love.

Randumb

"Oh, really? What sort of stuff do you write?" Do people ask you that? Do you ever know what to say? I don't. "Mostly pretentious crap," I want to say, but then they feel obligated to be polite or complimentary. "I don't know," I usually say. "Just stuff."

Is it just me, or are you sort of vaguely tired of things being the same? I like a lot of things in my life, but I long for some sort of change. Is it just me? I like my job. I love my family. I'm really not sure what I would even want to see changed. It's like this disconnected sense that I'd like the whole world to change, but I don't want to lose anything, and I've got no room, I think, to take on anything more. I'm reminded of a thought that occurred to me while reading Walker Percy's The Last Gentleman. People used to know who they were and what they wanted. Now, people don't know who they are and people don't know what they want. Percy seemed to feel that this is a bad development in society, but I have this notion that back then, back when people knew who they were and knew what they wanted, there was something rotten at the core of things. I don't know. I'm exactly the kind of person that Percy was lamenting, I think. "...he became overly subtle and had trouble ruling out the possible." That's me.

Van Morrison's Into the Mystic just started. Damn! I love this song in ways that probably betray something shallow or provincial about me. This song really stokes the embers of something smoldering somewhere in me. I think I must have some appreciation for the gypsy soul, though I'm really such a tamed person. All roads are open to me, I suppose, though I walk down none of them very far.

I'm going to close this post now. Thanks for reading it.

Hello, friends. Won't you tell me something?

Love.

Caution and Risk

A cool breeze blew up from the lake as I leaned against a huge hunk of limestone, fifteen feet tall, twice that wide and at least as deep. I was catching my breath and resting my screaming legs after the two miles of twisting trail that ran generally downhill to the lake shore and undulated through the pressing vines and trees before turning back uphill again to the rock climbing area here in the state park. The trail was a scatter of rectangular chunks of broken limestone and snaking tree roots that all served as steps and guides and stumbling blocks for unwary ankles and knees. It kept you on your toes and reminded you constantly that you were away from roads and floors and places made flat for your benefit. This was a surface you traversed on its terms, not yours.

As I rested from the hike, children clambered over the mammoth broken remains of some ancient, limestone shelf collapse and through the cave-like gaps and crevices that wove between them, wide in places and so narrow in others as to send shudders down my claustrophobic spine. There was a time when I'd have been with them, scrambling over (though not between) the massive slabs, but these days I was held firmly by an acute sense of self and caution, much to lose, little to gain. Children, of course, bear the same burden unaware. The loss of a child can shatter a family, but that's not their fault. They throw caution to the wind and leave no stone untrodden, no cave unexplored.

It occurred to me then, as I reclined, to consider them differently, my son and daughter, her young friend and my nephew, clambering away. They were just as cautious as I am, but they labored under the pressures of a different economy. "We could rest and relax here, trusting that we will have another chance to visit this place, trusting that more opportunities for climbing and spelunking litter our future, but what if we're wrong? What if we never come to such a place again? What if this is our only chance?" And so, in their own conservatism, they decide they cannot afford the opportunity risk. "Better to be cautious," they think. "Better to take advantage of these pleasures while they're here. You never know what might happen tomorrow." It's juvenile pragmatism and it's rampant. A few daring young souls recline in the shade, tempting fate, but most are not so bold.

After a while I decided we should head back to the car. To my horror, they begged me to take the trail back instead of walking along the nice level road just a bit father above us over the top of the cliff. "I don't know about you guys," I said, "but I'm fat and old. Are you sure you don't want to take the road?" They were sure. They just couldn't risk it. Risk-averse in their way, every one of them. It's a few days later now, and I can still feel the soreness of those last few hundred yards up the hill and over the tripping rocks to the saving grace of the car. Perhaps I'm not so cautious as I imagine.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Love.