December 2008
Very pleasant evening!
A new song is being composed before my very ears. Cool rhythm,
keyboard sounds, chords.
Four lighted Christmas trees of varying heights to my right. This
wonderful little Asus eee pc in my lap. "You can't beat having the vi
editor in your lap", is what I'm wont to start always saying.
Supper was literally on the house, what with winning $60 at the craps
table. My portion at Chili's was some sort of "big mouth" burger.
I suppose it's a bit frightening in a way. But I love the comic book
sort of feel to it.
I'm not big on holidays. Maybe because most days are holidays to me?
Holy days. Probably not per what you mean by "holy". But I know what I
mean. So there.
INDIRECTION's Flashback of 2008
August, 2008
Radio coverage of a Yankee game from the phone slices a thin, frayed
slit in the foamy whoosh of the central air. The keys of another
keyboard scratch a digital EKG onto the surface of that sonic fabric.
Train whistle blasts like screams from hell render it all irrelevant.
So, too, will the reaper's call transform a coworker's maddeningly
inexplicable behavior into simple meaninglessness.
It's all degrees and timing. Today's ennui was yesterday's proof of
enlightenment. Tomorrow's certainty, a slight rearranging of today's
identically colored puzzle pieces. Two days ago I knew everything:
today, I scarcely recognize my own handwriting. It's amazing how
quickly God goes from existing to not.
But it's lack of sleep and loss of meek, and that's why the earth is
no longer mine. Rather, I'm its. Back to the recycling bin we go, so
early in the morning of what could have been our lives.
Pondering what might have been is as effective a narcotic against the
present as is a camera, always the territory and map thereof dichotomy.
But chewing bubbly gum on the outside looking in is the sin you get
when you throw away the key.
Bye, bye miss two decades old rye, drove my liver to the river 'cuz my
shiver was high.
But it's merely tea. Tea, and New Yorker cartoons. And tomorrow off.
July, 2008
Flashback: that time I was driving alone, north on Route 9D, about to
turn left on a road whose name I no longer remember, toward New
Hamburg. Someone pulled yet another road shenanigan, a seemingly daily
occurrence in the vicinity of yours truly in beautiful - albeit
far-too-over-priced-for-what-it's-worth - Dutchess County, New York.
My stomach digested itself daily over others' vehicular
transgressions. But there I was, waiting to make that left turn,
wondering how it could be that so many people were so pathetic behind
the wheel.
And then it hit me: I had no proof such mistakes were chronic. In all
likelihood, I just happened to be there when an occasional person was
making their one mistake in a few years. And they deserved every bit
as much understanding as I hoped to receive when making one of my rare
blunders.
Sometimes it's a bit disappointing that I can't forget that
realization. There's still no lack of opportunity to slap my steering
wheel sideways while groaning - if not bellowing - out yet another
cover of The Self Righteous Brothers' "Can You Friggin' Believe How
Careless Others Are?" The lyrics flash through my brain like a right
blinker preceding a left turn.
But instead of category six hurricane winds, it's more a cool breeze
with an occasional gust. The answer is indeed blowing in the wind so
long as you don't try to capture it in your tiny little sails. Let
them pass, those winds of change you, lest they rearrange and estrange
you.
And I'm talking mostly to me.
