How To Throw A Ball
Walking around a big city on a crisp cool day near the beginning of summer is like watching the scenery from an air-conditioned movie theatre, with a box of popcorn, some Junior Mints, maybe Milk Duds if you can get them. You feel protected from the ugly (I'm sorry but I cannot suspend disbelief) reality of heat and steam and those mysterious flying particles that seem to come exploding from the corroded insides of exhaust pipes. Those ones that land and stick on the gooey wet exterior of your eyeballs and can at their worst ruin a part of your day, if vision is important to you, or at their least make you look bloodshot, bleary-eyed, unfortunate, perhaps even untouchable; certainly undesirable.
Say what you will about the conversation of weather, about how mundane is the subject matter, but it is or can be so important to people, I think, because of how profoundly different it can make you feel. If there was a pill that could make you cool on a hot muggy day...what?...oh there is...?...what...?...how much...?...can I buy them in a smaller lot...?...a sample?...sure, that would be nice...ok...well, assuming there was not a pill that could make you feel cool on a hot muggy day, and then one were introduced, I think it would be very popular, assuming you could run down to your neighborhood drug store to procure it. As it is, for those of us who haven't discovered the pill, we whimper all drag dog on hot days, maybe cringe and huddle on the cold ones, and, at some point we must talk about it. What I have said so far though, is about all I have to say about the weather, which today was pleasantly cool and just plain lovely really, the air was lovely today, still is in fact, and I will go so far as to say it was better than was the air two days ago. I have made a value judgment.
Which does not make a lick of difference to that woman who was hit by the bus near the corner of Grand and Clinton today. The school kids coming in to get pizza while I finished up my two slices told the proprietor about it. He had been sticking his head out the door and looking up the street but until one of the kids said, oh yeah, a lady got hit by a bus (the kid seeming neither concerned nor excited), I did not know what he was looking at. I remembered the few minutes earlier the impatient honking of motorists and feeling slightly annoyed but mostly glad I was not them, and then after learning that they were honking, essentially, at a woman down on the ground in front of a bus, I was even more glad not to be them. Now in my life there were two opposing forces working. The one was the simple, uncomplicated goodness I derived from the pleasant weather and the delicious pizza, and the other was a generic sense of concern for a fellow human being, who had in a most cliche fashion actually been hit by a bus.
That's the example people use when they want to illustrate that we cannot know the mysteries of the future, who knows I might get hit by a bus today, they say, never really meaning it literally. But when I finished my pizza and got back out on the street there it was, that thing that is usually just a figure of speech, someone hit by a bus. I did not want to seem disrespectful by gawking and at the same time I did not want to seem too blase about someone else's misfortune. So I paused briefly, craned my neck a little. and felt at least a little comforted by the speed at which this woman was being attended to (she was already on a hard stretcher board).
In the end it is something you just file away, in between the mostly awful headlines you read that morning and the unknowable future that awaits to fill up the rest of your day before you fall asleep. It is filed between the memory of a nothing fancy but well-prepared slice of pizza, and that large group of kids you saw in the park just a few minutes later. They were being taught, in groups of five, how to throw a ball.
...more recent posts
May Days
They were rapt attendees of a new age coffee symposium. And I was the keynote speaker. The crowd was of such a number that you would not bother to count them all. And I marveled each and every one with my enthusiastic delivery regarding the simplistic yet superior mechanics of the isometric pressure powered piston driven espresso machine, no batteries, no electricity needed, just hot water of a temperature that these recent days in New York could almost be achieved by simply leaving tap water on your kitchen counter. Whoa now you say, one subject at a time, are we talking about air conditioners or coffee makers?
We could talk about neck braces just as well because this morning from deep inside the uninvited coffee reverie I was jolted into the present by a guy rear ending me on Norfolk St. It's parking day and with recent construction projects in the area and the subsequent loss of an entire half block of spaces, the competition is that much more intense. But I'm out there claiming a space, safely distant from the fire hydrant behind me, just trying to manage, with a modicum of dignity, the flashing imagery of the recent past, and perhaps move forthwith into a fantasy world very possibly including wild sex with aliens from the planet Section 8, when bam, this guy in a silver station wagon runs right into my bumper. The jolt--it was pretty mild, and truly, if anything, my neck feels better than it did before the bump—caused me to look up from the small hand held device positioned between my legs and from which with a stroke of my index finger I catapulted cartoon birds from a sling shot through the air and onto a variety of structures in hope of toppling them. Then I looked in my rear view mirror, and then my side mirror, and finally I just stared off into space before snapping to, at which point I looked down between my legs again at the newest structure on the tiny glass screen, and flung with my finger a small bird that could with a tap be turned into three even smaller birds, none of which by themselves could topple much of anything.
I don't know that I am fond to consider that a NY meter maid might today have been my angel of instant karma retribution for the (at worst) rude knocking into my bumper, but as it played out the guy who bumped me got out of his car and was gone for only a minute, which was unfortunately for him time enough for a meter maid to drive up alongside his vehicle, see he was not inside of it, and in the flick of an electronic ticket recording device, cost him 60 dollars. He came back in time to complain but once the ticket is electronically recorded there is no turning back. I did hear her say she was sorry before jumping into her vehicle and driving off, so at least my angel was a polite one.
There are at this time of the year a number of people talking about air conditioners, including Bernadette and I, and while on the surface it might seem a simple matter, as it turns out there are a great many intricacies to consider, such that the best one can hope for, I think, is a day like today, which is a cool and refreshing break from the recent hot and muggy record setting weather for Mays in New York. It is today a day cool enough to imagine oneself say three months in the future, when any considerations of hot weather remedy are surely in any case going to be short lived ones.
They were rapt attendees of a new age coffee symposium. And I was the keynote speaker. The crowd was of such a number that you would not bother to count them all. And I marveled each and every one with my enthusiastic delivery regarding the simplistic yet superior mechanics of the isometric pressure powered piston driven espresso machine, no batteries, no electricity needed, just hot water of a temperature that these recent days in New York could almost be achieved by simply leaving tap water on your kitchen counter. Whoa now you say, one subject at a time, are we talking about air conditioners or coffee makers?
We could talk about neck braces just as well because this morning from deep inside the uninvited coffee reverie I was jolted into the present by a guy rear ending me on Norfolk St. It's parking day and with recent construction projects in the area and the subsequent loss of an entire half block of spaces, the competition is that much more intense. But I'm out there claiming a space, safely distant from the fire hydrant behind me, just trying to manage, with a modicum of dignity, the flashing imagery of the recent past, and perhaps move forthwith into a fantasy world very possibly including wild sex with aliens from the planet Section 8, when bam, this guy in a silver station wagon runs right into my bumper. The jolt--it was pretty mild, and truly, if anything, my neck feels better than it did before the bump—caused me to look up from the small hand held device positioned between my legs and from which with a stroke of my index finger I catapulted cartoon birds from a sling shot through the air and onto a variety of structures in hope of toppling them. Then I looked in my rear view mirror, and then my side mirror, and finally I just stared off into space before snapping to, at which point I looked down between my legs again at the newest structure on the tiny glass screen, and flung with my finger a small bird that could with a tap be turned into three even smaller birds, none of which by themselves could topple much of anything.
I don't know that I am fond to consider that a NY meter maid might today have been my angel of instant karma retribution for the (at worst) rude knocking into my bumper, but as it played out the guy who bumped me got out of his car and was gone for only a minute, which was unfortunately for him time enough for a meter maid to drive up alongside his vehicle, see he was not inside of it, and in the flick of an electronic ticket recording device, cost him 60 dollars. He came back in time to complain but once the ticket is electronically recorded there is no turning back. I did hear her say she was sorry before jumping into her vehicle and driving off, so at least my angel was a polite one.
There are at this time of the year a number of people talking about air conditioners, including Bernadette and I, and while on the surface it might seem a simple matter, as it turns out there are a great many intricacies to consider, such that the best one can hope for, I think, is a day like today, which is a cool and refreshing break from the recent hot and muggy record setting weather for Mays in New York. It is today a day cool enough to imagine oneself say three months in the future, when any considerations of hot weather remedy are surely in any case going to be short lived ones.
Travel By Train With Albert
We had, Bernadette and I, I think it was two years ago, taken her father to the Air and Space museum out by Dulles airport in Virginia. There he had seen, and I photographed him in front of, the very same version, or a very similar version of, the Russian Mig that had shot holes in the PBM Mariner aircraft of which he was a crew member, during the Korean conflict. Well, he survived, married his love, had wonderful children, and that's all that matters, if that's the way you want to look at it.
This past weekend we—Bernadette, her younger sister the Restauranteur, me, and her father, whom I am going to name Albert, and not because it could be considered short for Albatross—flew out from LaGuardia to a little place in Arkansas to hunt for quartz crystals, in what I think is a continuing effort to reap the power of said crystals to somehow cleanse this man of his less than stellar luck when he is thousands of feet in the air inside metal tubes with wings flown by men, as Albert said—he has neck-ties older than, and which contain all of us, the faithful and the faithless, the annoying, the fat, the skinny, the sleepers, and on our return trip not one, but two, crying babies.
From point to point on the way out, from the Lower East Side of New York to the Hot Springs motel run by that reluctant pair of Scottish moteliers, the seconds and minutes added up to 17 hours. After a weather related bump from the first flight out of LaGuardia we were back in NY eating breakfast on Clinton St. just after seven a.m., but when the second attempt got us out of what was a really spiffy small airport above Scarsdale by 2 p.m., we figured things were looking up.
After landing on the runway in a cloudy, somewhat tumultuous lighting streaked Atlanta, the pilot informed us that the airport was shut down and it was a lucky thing we had been allowed to land at all. We were stopped still on the tarmac for an amount of time that while unfortunate, did not really extend into a length that could be considered unbearable. Of course, after you've been on the runway for awhile you have no way of knowing just how long you will remain so certainly the idea of unbearable is within reach.
When the plane, with brakes on and engine idle low, began shuddering violently in the wind, we felt pretty certain we were going to miss our connecting flight and so started thinking about what we would do in Atlanta for one night (the stewardess suggested we not stay in any hotel near the airport as the entire area was patrolled by evil hooligans who intended only harm upon the innocent), or whether or not renting a car and driving to Arkansas was feasible. After checking the distance we determined driving was not a great idea, and also, if we had driven out of New York at five that morning and headed for Arkansas we would still be about five hours behind where we were now. So we figured we would stick with this flying thing for a bit longer, the sooner we got to Arkansas and dug up a Golden Healer for Albert, the better.
The ribbing directed towards Albert was intended and taken as good natured but this idea of his bad airplane related mojo was starting to grow on me. There were other recent bad experiences in his flying past, which Bernadette reminded him of. Out loud or to ourselves we all conjured up that specific Twilight Zone we thought best applied to our situation. For my part, despite his believable talent in getting us better seats at better prices, I was just glad William Shatner was not on our flight.
All was well though, for all flights were delayed and thus we caught our connector to Little Rock and got to the car rental counter at least forty-five minutes before they shut down. We drove that night into Hot Springs to end one long travel day.
The rock digging experience is another story. I have a long history of digging in the dirt so that benefitted me. It was hot as hell in Arkansas though. And if you want a clearer picture of a depressed economy, just go to one that was fairly depressed prior to the most recent economic downturn and it becomes clearer still, clear as a Male Crystal, not that the cloudy Female doesn't tell her own story. The economic story in Mt. Ida, Arkansas is communicated through the nearly vacant or shut down motels that you see, and there is little need for the communicative assistance one might achieve from a Double Terminated Crystal to get that point across. There were times during the trip though that a Double Terminated Female might have been useful in aiding us with its mythic properties. If I had dug one up I might have asked it should I fly from Little Rock to Memphis to LaGuardia on Tuesday. It might have said, I will give three of you but not the fourth one opportunity to not only postpone the Memphis to LaGuardia leg, but to profit from it.
Oh come on, like we were going to leave Albert to fly by himself back into New York. I mean, I did not have fortune telling assistance, so when the offer came for three of us to fly later, get 400 Delta Dollars a piece and lodging for our trouble, I only half seriously considered it.
Later, in the air, the crying babies are not really that bad, and besides we were apparently going to miss all weather and come in smoothly on schedule. And, if I may just give Albert one last good natured ribbing, I think perhaps had he been on a different flight (although maybe albatross is a little harsh) we would have come in smoothly. As it was we were coming in on time and with no apparent trouble until right at the last minute, out of the clouds—I swear this is true although I did not tell anyone about it until now—came that Mig from Albert's past, I would say for one last haunt but really who can be sure it will be the last we see of it. I saw it only briefly, its wingtip picking up the only speck of sunlight in the dark sky. It glinted right at me, like a Herkimer Diamond (which is by the way a crystal that can only be found in upstate New York.) Long before the plane starting bouncing and then climbing erratically, straining, I mean you could feel it trying to accelerate faster than it was truly able, I had noticed that we were not descending like we had started to but in fact were angled upward. No big deal, how often do you actually get into a New York airport without at least one extra pass? And I remember how quiet it had gotten there at the end, just before the thought of dying had pervaded my thinking. It had taken the jostling of the plane to lull the babies. The babies did not really know that planes are not supposed to jostle like a big ole riveted metal grandpa. I think they were just happy for the distraction and possibly the beneficial change in air pressure, so that their inner eardrums quit hurting so horribly.
All this excitement aside I had not really seriously considered that this was to be the last hurrah of any of us. I mean who knows, maybe that Mig I saw out the window was just in the area for an airshow. That is possible.
No, it took the comforting words of the steward to calm me into a state of terror. His wording, that if the pilot were not now so importantly busy he would be on the speaker himself telling us what was happening, that as soon as he got a break from getting over the shock that he had to actually fly this plane instead of just letting it coast in on auto-pilot, ok the last bit is my words, but he did say, this steward, I kid you not, that we should not panic. Which looking now at the word on the page it seems to me evocative of nothing like the definition of the word. Yet, hearing it spoken by an airline employee, on an airplane that is acting even a little bit erratically, really punched the word up with a refreshing literalness. The Restauranteur said later she remembered him using the words “wind shear,” which are also words I would add to the short list of things not to say on an airplane while it is struggling a bit to stay a float, ok, maybe I would add a float to the list as well since we were probably at least briefly over the Atlantic. Eh, you know, I'm here writing about it so how bad could it have been? Not really that bad. Not Terror at 20,000 Feet bad. Maybe I'll do one quick Google search for Migs in US airspace, but then I'll be done with it.
We had, Bernadette and I, I think it was two years ago, taken her father to the Air and Space museum out by Dulles airport in Virginia. There he had seen, and I photographed him in front of, the very same version, or a very similar version of, the Russian Mig that had shot holes in the PBM Mariner aircraft of which he was a crew member, during the Korean conflict. Well, he survived, married his love, had wonderful children, and that's all that matters, if that's the way you want to look at it.
This past weekend we—Bernadette, her younger sister the Restauranteur, me, and her father, whom I am going to name Albert, and not because it could be considered short for Albatross—flew out from LaGuardia to a little place in Arkansas to hunt for quartz crystals, in what I think is a continuing effort to reap the power of said crystals to somehow cleanse this man of his less than stellar luck when he is thousands of feet in the air inside metal tubes with wings flown by men, as Albert said—he has neck-ties older than, and which contain all of us, the faithful and the faithless, the annoying, the fat, the skinny, the sleepers, and on our return trip not one, but two, crying babies.
From point to point on the way out, from the Lower East Side of New York to the Hot Springs motel run by that reluctant pair of Scottish moteliers, the seconds and minutes added up to 17 hours. After a weather related bump from the first flight out of LaGuardia we were back in NY eating breakfast on Clinton St. just after seven a.m., but when the second attempt got us out of what was a really spiffy small airport above Scarsdale by 2 p.m., we figured things were looking up.
After landing on the runway in a cloudy, somewhat tumultuous lighting streaked Atlanta, the pilot informed us that the airport was shut down and it was a lucky thing we had been allowed to land at all. We were stopped still on the tarmac for an amount of time that while unfortunate, did not really extend into a length that could be considered unbearable. Of course, after you've been on the runway for awhile you have no way of knowing just how long you will remain so certainly the idea of unbearable is within reach.
When the plane, with brakes on and engine idle low, began shuddering violently in the wind, we felt pretty certain we were going to miss our connecting flight and so started thinking about what we would do in Atlanta for one night (the stewardess suggested we not stay in any hotel near the airport as the entire area was patrolled by evil hooligans who intended only harm upon the innocent), or whether or not renting a car and driving to Arkansas was feasible. After checking the distance we determined driving was not a great idea, and also, if we had driven out of New York at five that morning and headed for Arkansas we would still be about five hours behind where we were now. So we figured we would stick with this flying thing for a bit longer, the sooner we got to Arkansas and dug up a Golden Healer for Albert, the better.
The ribbing directed towards Albert was intended and taken as good natured but this idea of his bad airplane related mojo was starting to grow on me. There were other recent bad experiences in his flying past, which Bernadette reminded him of. Out loud or to ourselves we all conjured up that specific Twilight Zone we thought best applied to our situation. For my part, despite his believable talent in getting us better seats at better prices, I was just glad William Shatner was not on our flight.
All was well though, for all flights were delayed and thus we caught our connector to Little Rock and got to the car rental counter at least forty-five minutes before they shut down. We drove that night into Hot Springs to end one long travel day.
The rock digging experience is another story. I have a long history of digging in the dirt so that benefitted me. It was hot as hell in Arkansas though. And if you want a clearer picture of a depressed economy, just go to one that was fairly depressed prior to the most recent economic downturn and it becomes clearer still, clear as a Male Crystal, not that the cloudy Female doesn't tell her own story. The economic story in Mt. Ida, Arkansas is communicated through the nearly vacant or shut down motels that you see, and there is little need for the communicative assistance one might achieve from a Double Terminated Crystal to get that point across. There were times during the trip though that a Double Terminated Female might have been useful in aiding us with its mythic properties. If I had dug one up I might have asked it should I fly from Little Rock to Memphis to LaGuardia on Tuesday. It might have said, I will give three of you but not the fourth one opportunity to not only postpone the Memphis to LaGuardia leg, but to profit from it.
Oh come on, like we were going to leave Albert to fly by himself back into New York. I mean, I did not have fortune telling assistance, so when the offer came for three of us to fly later, get 400 Delta Dollars a piece and lodging for our trouble, I only half seriously considered it.
Later, in the air, the crying babies are not really that bad, and besides we were apparently going to miss all weather and come in smoothly on schedule. And, if I may just give Albert one last good natured ribbing, I think perhaps had he been on a different flight (although maybe albatross is a little harsh) we would have come in smoothly. As it was we were coming in on time and with no apparent trouble until right at the last minute, out of the clouds—I swear this is true although I did not tell anyone about it until now—came that Mig from Albert's past, I would say for one last haunt but really who can be sure it will be the last we see of it. I saw it only briefly, its wingtip picking up the only speck of sunlight in the dark sky. It glinted right at me, like a Herkimer Diamond (which is by the way a crystal that can only be found in upstate New York.) Long before the plane starting bouncing and then climbing erratically, straining, I mean you could feel it trying to accelerate faster than it was truly able, I had noticed that we were not descending like we had started to but in fact were angled upward. No big deal, how often do you actually get into a New York airport without at least one extra pass? And I remember how quiet it had gotten there at the end, just before the thought of dying had pervaded my thinking. It had taken the jostling of the plane to lull the babies. The babies did not really know that planes are not supposed to jostle like a big ole riveted metal grandpa. I think they were just happy for the distraction and possibly the beneficial change in air pressure, so that their inner eardrums quit hurting so horribly.
All this excitement aside I had not really seriously considered that this was to be the last hurrah of any of us. I mean who knows, maybe that Mig I saw out the window was just in the area for an airshow. That is possible.
No, it took the comforting words of the steward to calm me into a state of terror. His wording, that if the pilot were not now so importantly busy he would be on the speaker himself telling us what was happening, that as soon as he got a break from getting over the shock that he had to actually fly this plane instead of just letting it coast in on auto-pilot, ok the last bit is my words, but he did say, this steward, I kid you not, that we should not panic. Which looking now at the word on the page it seems to me evocative of nothing like the definition of the word. Yet, hearing it spoken by an airline employee, on an airplane that is acting even a little bit erratically, really punched the word up with a refreshing literalness. The Restauranteur said later she remembered him using the words “wind shear,” which are also words I would add to the short list of things not to say on an airplane while it is struggling a bit to stay a float, ok, maybe I would add a float to the list as well since we were probably at least briefly over the Atlantic. Eh, you know, I'm here writing about it so how bad could it have been? Not really that bad. Not Terror at 20,000 Feet bad. Maybe I'll do one quick Google search for Migs in US airspace, but then I'll be done with it.
Golden Healer
No Muddy Clothes/No Crystals
This is private property I intoned in my pitifully inept attempt at sounding Scottish, so that I could relate to Bernadette the morning tidbit.
I had been sitting on the steps leading up to the pool, debating whether or not I should risk ringworm by petting the motel cat, when a van pulled into the lot and parked. A man and a woman exited the vehicle. I must admit that I unfairly profiled them to be maintenance workers as this was a motel in Arkansas, and they were black, and it was not quite yet seven in the morning and nobody checks into a motel at seven in the morning.
As they approached I swallowed a sip of warm coffee and croaked out a gravelly good morning and then in response to the man's question I said I was doing ok, was just trying to wake up. He then began asking me things to which I had no answer. I told him that really I had no idea what was what, or for that matter where they could park or when they could check in.
It was then that the female half of the proprietor couple came out from the dwelling attached to the pool area and alerted all of us--me, the cat, and the black couple, that this was private property. Now I must admit that initially I just assumed this was plain and simple good old fashioned racial intolerance, damn the century, we still don't allow no blacks around here, but as I write this, on a miniature device, seated in the provided chair out front the room, number 5, with my boot rested up on the front bumper of the shiny, rented Dodge truck, I am seeing two fellow guests exit their rooms and one is black and the other is Mexican, so out the window goes my racial intolerance theory.
But earlier by some freak of default I had been deemed the master of linguistic interpretation and was thereby adopted to be the translator.
The Scotts were now in full tandem force and after they said something the black couple would look at me with raised eyebrows and I would give them the regrettable news, and it was all regrettable, and they would shake their heads. The best I could offer in way of commiseration was the most subtle of smirks and a barely noticeable sideways tilt of my head.
In the end the black couple just disappeared into the abyss of the unwanted and misunderstood and I had another cup of coffee and waited for my party to coalesce so that I could drive the all of us from these Hot Springs on in to Mt. Ida, where we would in due time meet an array of interesting crystal miners and collect in various fashion some interesting specimens .
This is private property I intoned in my pitifully inept attempt at sounding Scottish, so that I could relate to Bernadette the morning tidbit.
I had been sitting on the steps leading up to the pool, debating whether or not I should risk ringworm by petting the motel cat, when a van pulled into the lot and parked. A man and a woman exited the vehicle. I must admit that I unfairly profiled them to be maintenance workers as this was a motel in Arkansas, and they were black, and it was not quite yet seven in the morning and nobody checks into a motel at seven in the morning.
As they approached I swallowed a sip of warm coffee and croaked out a gravelly good morning and then in response to the man's question I said I was doing ok, was just trying to wake up. He then began asking me things to which I had no answer. I told him that really I had no idea what was what, or for that matter where they could park or when they could check in.
It was then that the female half of the proprietor couple came out from the dwelling attached to the pool area and alerted all of us--me, the cat, and the black couple, that this was private property. Now I must admit that initially I just assumed this was plain and simple good old fashioned racial intolerance, damn the century, we still don't allow no blacks around here, but as I write this, on a miniature device, seated in the provided chair out front the room, number 5, with my boot rested up on the front bumper of the shiny, rented Dodge truck, I am seeing two fellow guests exit their rooms and one is black and the other is Mexican, so out the window goes my racial intolerance theory.
But earlier by some freak of default I had been deemed the master of linguistic interpretation and was thereby adopted to be the translator.
The Scotts were now in full tandem force and after they said something the black couple would look at me with raised eyebrows and I would give them the regrettable news, and it was all regrettable, and they would shake their heads. The best I could offer in way of commiseration was the most subtle of smirks and a barely noticeable sideways tilt of my head.
In the end the black couple just disappeared into the abyss of the unwanted and misunderstood and I had another cup of coffee and waited for my party to coalesce so that I could drive the all of us from these Hot Springs on in to Mt. Ida, where we would in due time meet an array of interesting crystal miners and collect in various fashion some interesting specimens .
Jersey Shore Surfers
What Truth
The reward, he could barely stand it waiting for the reward, a reward, any reward, would be a juicy fried rib eye for breakfast. How it would sizzle. He could barely stand it, there, I don't mind saying that again. I can see him thinking about it, pretending like he is thinking about nothing at all. He fools a lot of people with that blank stare but he isn't fooling me. A rib eye was all he could think about. Red meat juice dribbled down the chin of his imagination. One more thing competing for space with meat was the subtle difference between another thing coming and another think. Oh how once he laughed that good natured laugh. Were his lips exercising the dance of condescension? Did he misunderstand something very important that day when he mistakingly reduced his worldview to one constrained by verbal conjugation. The boy with nothing to do and no friends nearby had woefully uttered, I'm boring, when what he had meant to say was--I'm bored. But the truth was, the truth is, the boy was right the first time. He is boring. The man wondered if the meat would still be fresh. He was faint now, even the thought of bloody meat did little to revive him. He would wash it down with the juice of carrots and beets and radishes and celery and jalapeno and ginger and lemon and garlic. It wasn't a new diet, exactly. He was boring. It would take a trick or two to resolve the damage done by not realizing it sooner.
The reward, he could barely stand it waiting for the reward, a reward, any reward, would be a juicy fried rib eye for breakfast. How it would sizzle. He could barely stand it, there, I don't mind saying that again. I can see him thinking about it, pretending like he is thinking about nothing at all. He fools a lot of people with that blank stare but he isn't fooling me. A rib eye was all he could think about. Red meat juice dribbled down the chin of his imagination. One more thing competing for space with meat was the subtle difference between another thing coming and another think. Oh how once he laughed that good natured laugh. Were his lips exercising the dance of condescension? Did he misunderstand something very important that day when he mistakingly reduced his worldview to one constrained by verbal conjugation. The boy with nothing to do and no friends nearby had woefully uttered, I'm boring, when what he had meant to say was--I'm bored. But the truth was, the truth is, the boy was right the first time. He is boring. The man wondered if the meat would still be fresh. He was faint now, even the thought of bloody meat did little to revive him. He would wash it down with the juice of carrots and beets and radishes and celery and jalapeno and ginger and lemon and garlic. It wasn't a new diet, exactly. He was boring. It would take a trick or two to resolve the damage done by not realizing it sooner.
The Indignant Pine
(It seems that this post from yesterday got deleted by mistake while posting today which puts today's post actually below this)
The cat came in through the window carrying a baby bunny, but not cradled gently, rather in her jaws clamped piercingly tight on the bunny's neck. The cat laid the bunny down gently on the wood floor and galloped happily to the kitchen where the food and water was always fresh and plentiful.
The man stared out the window at birds on the lawn below the freely swaying boughs of pine. The birds and the boughs described for him a movement that otherwise he would question, as the mountains in the background were dauntingly still. How could something be so still? Could a man become a mountain? The sun imprinted versions of itself across the walls of the room and by its color he could guess the time of day and even the temperature outside. This could be a skill. If for example he ever lost some primary connection to the outside world this guessing acumen might prove useful.
The cat was galloping again. It seemed her loud high stepping was an exaggeration. A prideful “look at me I've got blood on my tongue” noisemaking. She was taking her time with the beheading. The wound slowly grew during the day to become something to which the man could offer no more tolerance. I cannot tolerate this beheading was a sudden emotion that came out of nowhere. It was the wound. The wound was offensive.
The man was outside now. He had approached the pine (table nine, bunny rare), and on his cardboard tray the bunny still sufficiently dead, rested. Excuse me he interrupted the raucous pine, but who ordered the bunny? Before the pine at table nine could glean his meaning he flung the bunny, at the same time turning away so he could not see its trajectory. He was a coward in this respect. The bunny flew like it never had in life, an inexperience that ended badly, an ignominy beyond death, and it crashed with a thwap, the sound as best the man could describe it was thwap. To this day whenever the man hears that noise he is reminded of bad endings. The pine had complained to management and the man, blackballed, never worked in restaurants again.
(It seems that this post from yesterday got deleted by mistake while posting today which puts today's post actually below this)
The cat came in through the window carrying a baby bunny, but not cradled gently, rather in her jaws clamped piercingly tight on the bunny's neck. The cat laid the bunny down gently on the wood floor and galloped happily to the kitchen where the food and water was always fresh and plentiful.
The man stared out the window at birds on the lawn below the freely swaying boughs of pine. The birds and the boughs described for him a movement that otherwise he would question, as the mountains in the background were dauntingly still. How could something be so still? Could a man become a mountain? The sun imprinted versions of itself across the walls of the room and by its color he could guess the time of day and even the temperature outside. This could be a skill. If for example he ever lost some primary connection to the outside world this guessing acumen might prove useful.
The cat was galloping again. It seemed her loud high stepping was an exaggeration. A prideful “look at me I've got blood on my tongue” noisemaking. She was taking her time with the beheading. The wound slowly grew during the day to become something to which the man could offer no more tolerance. I cannot tolerate this beheading was a sudden emotion that came out of nowhere. It was the wound. The wound was offensive.
The man was outside now. He had approached the pine (table nine, bunny rare), and on his cardboard tray the bunny still sufficiently dead, rested. Excuse me he interrupted the raucous pine, but who ordered the bunny? Before the pine at table nine could glean his meaning he flung the bunny, at the same time turning away so he could not see its trajectory. He was a coward in this respect. The bunny flew like it never had in life, an inexperience that ended badly, an ignominy beyond death, and it crashed with a thwap, the sound as best the man could describe it was thwap. To this day whenever the man hears that noise he is reminded of bad endings. The pine had complained to management and the man, blackballed, never worked in restaurants again.
An Ecological Perspective
Alex Carp considered the laundry. With pinpoint imaginative precision and without moving from the bed he could see every article of dirty clothing in the house, and determine by what was lacking on his bedside table what remained in the pockets of those articles. He was certain the dirty laundry existed in only four rooms. In his mind he sorted the laundry. He approached a state bordering titillation as he imagined the hot soapy suds and the swirling mechanics of the machine as it went to work on the red clay and chainsaw oil staining his work pants on the floor of bathroom number one. Those pants were so dirty he wondered if they should not be a pile unto themselves. But when he considered the quality of most of the clothing littering the four rooms he realized it would not matter so much what got washed with what.
From days past in laundromats observing the cleanliness of others he could see how getting white clothes really white could be a matter of pride for some, a job well done and he was on board with that, jobs well done, yet for him and his things white it was a bit too late and he therefore took his own measure of pride as he realized how much water he was saving by simply reducing his loads to one hot and one cold. White things, if you could really call his white things white, could comfortably coexist inside the machine with darker things.
Goodness, this would be quite a day indeed. Oh the things he would get done now that he had the laundry all sorted out. A task so long put off he could not remember when his clothing had last been clean.
Alex looked across the room at the dresser. There could be some clean clothes in there. If he sorted through all the girly things he could perhaps find another day's worth of clean clothing. Or better yet if he wore for another day his dirty clothing how much more ecologically sound would that be? He could, as he saw it, if he really put his mind to it, save the world, at least in a measure commensurate to his negative affect on it. But then when he started adding up his negative contributions to the world ecology he began to doubt that simply wearing dirty clothes would be enough. He had after all just recently sprayed gasoline on the driveway to kill weeds growing through the gravel. Alex, admittedly not a scientist, could still postulate that gasoline leaching into the soil was probably not a good thing, and that just wearing dirty clothes for another day might not be enough to counterbalance that.
If however, he did not bathe for a week, did not do laundry for another week, did not leave the property in search of groceries but subsisted on every edible can and box in the cupboards, he could then possibly earn enough ecological credit to counterbalance the gasoline leaching.
Alex felt the lifting of a burden from his shoulders. Oh how much he would get done today now that he could reasonably justify not doing so many of the things he had first considered doing.
Alex Carp considered the laundry. With pinpoint imaginative precision and without moving from the bed he could see every article of dirty clothing in the house, and determine by what was lacking on his bedside table what remained in the pockets of those articles. He was certain the dirty laundry existed in only four rooms. In his mind he sorted the laundry. He approached a state bordering titillation as he imagined the hot soapy suds and the swirling mechanics of the machine as it went to work on the red clay and chainsaw oil staining his work pants on the floor of bathroom number one. Those pants were so dirty he wondered if they should not be a pile unto themselves. But when he considered the quality of most of the clothing littering the four rooms he realized it would not matter so much what got washed with what.
From days past in laundromats observing the cleanliness of others he could see how getting white clothes really white could be a matter of pride for some, a job well done and he was on board with that, jobs well done, yet for him and his things white it was a bit too late and he therefore took his own measure of pride as he realized how much water he was saving by simply reducing his loads to one hot and one cold. White things, if you could really call his white things white, could comfortably coexist inside the machine with darker things.
Goodness, this would be quite a day indeed. Oh the things he would get done now that he had the laundry all sorted out. A task so long put off he could not remember when his clothing had last been clean.
Alex looked across the room at the dresser. There could be some clean clothes in there. If he sorted through all the girly things he could perhaps find another day's worth of clean clothing. Or better yet if he wore for another day his dirty clothing how much more ecologically sound would that be? He could, as he saw it, if he really put his mind to it, save the world, at least in a measure commensurate to his negative affect on it. But then when he started adding up his negative contributions to the world ecology he began to doubt that simply wearing dirty clothes would be enough. He had after all just recently sprayed gasoline on the driveway to kill weeds growing through the gravel. Alex, admittedly not a scientist, could still postulate that gasoline leaching into the soil was probably not a good thing, and that just wearing dirty clothes for another day might not be enough to counterbalance that.
If however, he did not bathe for a week, did not do laundry for another week, did not leave the property in search of groceries but subsisted on every edible can and box in the cupboards, he could then possibly earn enough ecological credit to counterbalance the gasoline leaching.
Alex felt the lifting of a burden from his shoulders. Oh how much he would get done today now that he could reasonably justify not doing so many of the things he had first considered doing.
Decisive Avoidance
He was trying to decide between the train and the bus or the renting of a car. He wasn't sure exactly what time his meeting would be over or whether or not it would snow, which as he saw it were two important factors in determining his mode of travel. If he got out of the meeting early enough to beat or be on the easy side of rush hour it might be preferable to drive as it allowed the most autonomy, albeit at the expense of having to be awake and in charge of his destiny, where to turn, how fast to go, what to look at, when to pass and when to sit back, and which radio station to listen to. Under ideal conditions and with aggressive driving style it was possible to make the trip between Philly and New York in an hour and a half. There were any number of people he could talk to at the business meeting who could make the quick drive claim, some shaving off enough minutes to imply that under their suits they wore another suit emblazoned with the letter S. If he didn't pull away at times to go to the bathroom or make a phone call or pretend he was doing one or the other, he could be stuck listening to a preposterous geometric progression of braggadocio that led to any variety of grotesque and vainglorious chest puffing behavior, all of it eventually ending with a group of, mostly men, staring blankly forward, at walls or each other, realizing that again they have gone too far too fast. Excuse me I need to take this call, and retreat. The drive could also under not ideal conditions take four hours or more.
If it snowed, well then, the only thing he could think to say about that was crapshit. Onto every life a little snow must fall, sure, but man, crapshit and holy hell, why me, why now, why oh why Lord does it all have to happen to me? He found sometimes that a short bout of controlled histrionics helped him to calm down and think straight if not fly right. In this case however he felt every bit as confused after the histrionics as before and so moved directly to plan B which not to oversimplify included the aggressive handling of a matter by putting it out of your mind.
You could then jump ahead two or more steps and be at the conclusion or on the other side of whatever pesky problem lay in front of you. In this case he saw himself already flown from Chicago to the Philadelphia meeting and surviving that somehow transported to Manhattan where he sat now inside at an establishment of haute gastronomy imagining not only what he would order and drink and how much but what he would say. Hey, (and here he winked across the table at his old college buddy even though winking was not something he was especially trained at) is it haute enough for you? he might say before staring down protectively at his silverware to avoid getting in his eyes the ensuing laughter fueled projectile spew of alcohol and ice. The college buddy's girlfriend would think him charming and would engage him in all manner of interesting conversation to further distract him from the possible catastrophic consequences inherent to his skipping through time without a hall pass. But so far this skipping of the precursory was ok, just being forward in time and avoiding all the necessary preparations, it could work. And in this world which did not yet but very well may exist he could find little to complain about excepting perhaps not so much the size of the portions but that his college buddy would not share his glycerin injected rabbit jowl mousse fricassee. Though, this too was fine, in this world or another, as long as the buddy and the girlfriend laughed at his moose fricassee jokes, of which he had plenty.
He was trying to decide between the train and the bus or the renting of a car. He wasn't sure exactly what time his meeting would be over or whether or not it would snow, which as he saw it were two important factors in determining his mode of travel. If he got out of the meeting early enough to beat or be on the easy side of rush hour it might be preferable to drive as it allowed the most autonomy, albeit at the expense of having to be awake and in charge of his destiny, where to turn, how fast to go, what to look at, when to pass and when to sit back, and which radio station to listen to. Under ideal conditions and with aggressive driving style it was possible to make the trip between Philly and New York in an hour and a half. There were any number of people he could talk to at the business meeting who could make the quick drive claim, some shaving off enough minutes to imply that under their suits they wore another suit emblazoned with the letter S. If he didn't pull away at times to go to the bathroom or make a phone call or pretend he was doing one or the other, he could be stuck listening to a preposterous geometric progression of braggadocio that led to any variety of grotesque and vainglorious chest puffing behavior, all of it eventually ending with a group of, mostly men, staring blankly forward, at walls or each other, realizing that again they have gone too far too fast. Excuse me I need to take this call, and retreat. The drive could also under not ideal conditions take four hours or more.
If it snowed, well then, the only thing he could think to say about that was crapshit. Onto every life a little snow must fall, sure, but man, crapshit and holy hell, why me, why now, why oh why Lord does it all have to happen to me? He found sometimes that a short bout of controlled histrionics helped him to calm down and think straight if not fly right. In this case however he felt every bit as confused after the histrionics as before and so moved directly to plan B which not to oversimplify included the aggressive handling of a matter by putting it out of your mind.
You could then jump ahead two or more steps and be at the conclusion or on the other side of whatever pesky problem lay in front of you. In this case he saw himself already flown from Chicago to the Philadelphia meeting and surviving that somehow transported to Manhattan where he sat now inside at an establishment of haute gastronomy imagining not only what he would order and drink and how much but what he would say. Hey, (and here he winked across the table at his old college buddy even though winking was not something he was especially trained at) is it haute enough for you? he might say before staring down protectively at his silverware to avoid getting in his eyes the ensuing laughter fueled projectile spew of alcohol and ice. The college buddy's girlfriend would think him charming and would engage him in all manner of interesting conversation to further distract him from the possible catastrophic consequences inherent to his skipping through time without a hall pass. But so far this skipping of the precursory was ok, just being forward in time and avoiding all the necessary preparations, it could work. And in this world which did not yet but very well may exist he could find little to complain about excepting perhaps not so much the size of the portions but that his college buddy would not share his glycerin injected rabbit jowl mousse fricassee. Though, this too was fine, in this world or another, as long as the buddy and the girlfriend laughed at his moose fricassee jokes, of which he had plenty.