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The Irony Storm
I feel that something has happened to upset the irony balance on the planet and so we should all be careful with our meanings until such a time I deem it safe to carry on. Why I should be in charge of such an important task I cannot tell you but something has to be done. Everybody, please be careful. Also, everyday, you might want to try to find somebody who really likes you no matter what, and utter a few proclamations of what you deem to be simple, literal truth. See what happens. But again, I implore you--be careful. You may find that the people you thought really liked you only like you when you speak about the weather and other subjects that in no way challenge the potential balance of the meaning of meaning. Or it may turn out that your friend cannot understand you unless your speech is peppered with irony. This is not just about drunken, awol, frat boy, mama's boy world leaders in flight jackets but you can use that as an example if you have reached this far and are scratching your head--irony?
Leaving this phenomenon unchecked we run the risk that simple truth will be lost forever. Our vacuous and vapid popular culture will rule the day, as it now appears to be--let's hope temporarily--ruling the world.
Thanksgiving 2003
The idea of looking for meaning in a meaningless world was underscored by the kid in the pantry when he said, "what's the use?" in response to his mother's admonishment and subsequent offer of compromise.
I was going to tell the kid the use but it gets complicated and its hard to be sure how to say it exactly and it really gets difficult when trying to explain it to someone so much closer to immortality, as children know themselves to be.
But kid, as I see it, the use is to simply be, to survive every onslaught, and absorb as much or a little more than as much as you can stand and then give something back so that you don't become a human black hole.
I celebrated Thanksgiving with other humans this year. Contrary to my affinity for solitary existence I enjoy humans pretty well, obviously some more than others, but the repetitive action of interpreting new personalities and approximating appropriate response has left me feeling, while somewhat satisfied, totally frayed.
Of course I medicated throughout with deep breaths and alcohol, one day having my first Guinness shortly after noontime, and my last shorty before 10 pm. And then there's that surprising emotion of missing people once they are gone which I am not as experienced dealing with as perhaps I should be.
I called my nearly ninety-year-old mother Thanksgiving night, ashamedly I admit only after being prodded to, and she is doing fine but seemed a little frail, and the deterioration of her memory is not a completely new thing but I hated hearing it over the phone, my least favorite communication device. I guess she was forgetting that rarity of rarities, my recent writing to her, with return address clearly marked on envelope, and we danced shyly and awkwardly around the fact that it was proving to be a rather difficult task for her to hear, remember, and write down the five numbers of my Rappahannock zip code. Of course why should any mother have to remember so many addresses? Why won't that son just stay put somewhere?
As I think of all the addresses I may inhabit over the next several months I look forward for better or worse to the blur of uncertainty. If I just remember to keep those frayed edges trimmed I'll be okeedokey.