So I’m sitting with my husband in our local IHOP at 3am. My band just finished a gig and I have a Ben Franklin in my pocket.
So I say, “Hey, we should take this $100 over to the slots and see if we can turn it into something.”
And he says, “$5? A distant memory?”
Funny guy that…
There was a definite “ping” in the universe today.
I heard it. Did you?
I’m not entirely sure if I can explain it. Hell, I’m not entirely sure what I mean. But something changed today and I don’t know what it was. I wish I did. I wish I knew if it had anything to do with me. I suspect it does, even if only peripherally.
Because I heard the ping.
Something changed today. I wish I knew what it was, but something changed.
To be continued…
Okay so I’m not any sort of exercise monkey or anything, and frankly I don’t like it very much. But since I like food, I gotta do something. So in order to burn calories, I strap on a headset and walk the neighborhood. And I mean HOOF. Between 3.5 and 4.5 mph the whole way. And I live in the foothills of the Appalachians, so my neighborhood ain’t exactly flat. I use the music to keep a steady pace (for roughly 3 minutes at a stretch) and find good-paced music to work the hills. Like Tush by ZZ Top. Or Prince’s I Would Die For U. Or Lady Marmalade if you need to slow the pace but keep a long stride. Any of these will get you up a 10% incline without too much agony.
And I’m the kind of person who can just walk. Point me in a direction, provide me with a music player, and I’ll just go. And go and go.
Anyway so I have the music going the whole time, but about 2/3 of the way into the neighborhood circuit I find myself turning up the volume. A little more and a little more and a little more. At first I was thinking it was because I was getting into a zone and really liked the songs on the playlist so I was using the added volume to zone into the music a little more.
I don’t think that’s it though.
I’m pretty sure that I turn up the music really loud so I can’t hear my hamstrings screaming at me.
As an addendum, I also realized that the last segment of today’s walk was entirely motivated by the hot dog I plan to eat for lunch.
Whatever gets you through the day I guess.
Do you know why I love driving around in a car with no roof?
I put the top down on the Jeep last Friday. The last three days have been full sunshine, low humidity, daily temperatures topping out in the upper 70’s/low 80’s.
It’s the first week of June and the whole world smells like fresh cut grass and honeysuckle.
Well, except for the cow pasture down the road. That smells a little different.
I hate people.
I came to the local Panera to have a little lunch and do a little writing and what do I see in the parking lot but a scrawny tuxedo (cat) wandering between the rain gutter and the kitchen door of the place. The white parts are grayish brown and the fur is just wretched-looking.
Goddamn I hate people for that. If you don’t want the cat, take it to a shelter. At least it has the opportunity to be adopted and if it doesn’t get adopted, at least it has the ability to die humanely. If you think starving to death is a good way to kill a cat, try it yourself. If you think “oh the cat can survive in the wild” after never being taught to do so, try it yourself. Lemme know how that works out for you.
I mean, christ, there’s a Petco in the shopping center here that works with one of the local shelters. Take the damn thing there and drop it off in the store. Not in the fucking parking lot by a field next to a 4-lane highway.
Stupid goddamn people. I hate people.
If you are an avid visitor, you may have read the page “A Beginning or The End” posted earlier in May, regarding an upcoming trip to Indiana, Pennsylvania, to hang out with a friend for the weekend and to possibly battle some very old demons.
Well I went to Indiana and hung out with my friend Bill and we talked a lot and walked around a lot and it was really a great weekend. But as you know, I went there for my own reasons. I felt the need to go back there but didn’t know why. I felt the need to find out what was there for me that I thought I needed to find or face or deal with. I felt like there must be ghosts there that I needed to exorcise.
You know what I found in Indiana? Nothing.
Even as I approached town on Thursday night, I was sort of saying “Here I am” and waiting for what I thought would be the inevitable flood of memories or feelings or regrets or lost opportunities or whatever.
Nope. What I got back was “And you are…?”
There’s nothing there for me. It was all in my imagination. I have memories of the place, sure. Some good, some bad, but there’s nothing there that has anything to do with me anymore. It’s a nice place to visit, but it’s just a place.
This bothered me for a little while because I felt stupid reading so much into it. Until a friend of mine pointed this out to me:
Nothing is a mighty surprising thing to find when you expect to find something. And yeah, sometimes isolating the essential nothing can unjam you like nothing else.So as I wandered through the corridors of a mostly empty Waller Hall (the theatre building), I heard my own footsteps falling on the now carpeted hallways, and heard the echoes of the heavy steel doors I opened and closed, and I wondered if anyone else was in the building wondering who might be making those noises.
And it occurred to me that sometimes the ghosts we hear are us.
I wrote a song by that name once. Through The Looking Glass. It was crap. Catchy crap but crap nonetheless. It was some to do with going through a mirror (ala Alice) to go from this world to a new and different one on the other side.
Or that’s how I remember it anyway.
Upon further reflection, though (like the pun?) I think that phrase has a different meaning for me now.
Think about a mirror. Think about looking into a mirror. What do you see? Your reflection, sure but you also see all of the things behind you.
I think that’s telling.
Mirrors are weird things. They seem very magic because they reflect what is there, sure. But the reflection you see isn’t always accurate, depending on the angle you’re using or the quality of the mirror (read: funhouse). In fact, strictly speaking, what you see in the mirror is NEVER accurate because it’s always backwards.
And yet…we use them to see what is now. What does that mean? What does that get you?
Mirrors have always seemed like magical things which is why I think they never lose their metaphoric capabilities.
Why are we always a little embarrassed by being caught looking in a mirror? Does it seem like we’re doing something we shouldn’t be doing? Looking at something we shouldn’t be looking at? Looking too hard at whatever we see?
I dunno – just thinking about it.
Maybe because I’ve been doing a lot of looking at what’s behind me, possibly to see if the reflection I’m actually seeing of myself is accurate. Or seems accurate. Which, as we have established, is impossible. Strictly speaking.
First, the randomness. I was discussing the Balk with my husband the other day – a point we’ve discussed frequently. I don’t entirely understand all of the facets of a balk. I know that part of it has to do with crossing the plane of the rubber and delivering the ball to home plate. Then there’s another part of it where you can’t make a move to home plate and throw to first (or not throw the ball at all I guess). But the details of it I find very hard to concretely define or understand.
The thing I do know about a balk is that you know it when you see it. Making the balk, effectively, the “pornography of baseball.”
As for why I’m REALLY here, I would like to just point out that the Orioles have beaten both the #1 and #2 starters for the Yankees. Granted, Sabathia went 0-3 and then 1-5 last year. He’s not an “April pitcher” but as a beleaguered O’s fan, I’ll take what I can get.
(As an aside, C.C. doesn’t exactly appear to be in “fighting” shape yet either…in the gray uniform of the Yankees he looked a little like a small elephant on the mound. I hope the pinstripes are at least a little bit thinning on him.)
Furthermore, Mark “no thanks I’ll take the money” Texiera is one-for-Camden-Yards in these first two games of the season and Baltimore fans have let him know, unequivocally, their opinions on the matter. (phrase stolen from my friend Bill – check out his blog, linked in my Blogroll.)
So I’m happy. So far. Yes, I know it’s early…VERY early in the season and I know this glow won’t last too long, but our starting pitching looks good (wish our bullpen looked better) and of course we have George Sherrill. Much like my band, ain’t much to look at but he delivers when it counts.
By August I’m sure I will be spewing venom about how we have one of the best defensive infields in baseball and some really great hitters (had three hitters last year who combined led the league in doubles with close to 50 each) but can’t pitch our way through the 7th inning. I’m sure I will spend the same number of hours explaining to my 7-year-old how a 5 run lead against the Yankees might not be enough, even in the 8th inning.
But I have hope. And that’s what baseball is all about. The clean slate you start with in April that you have 162 games to fill, and with any luck, with more W than L. And each game is a clean slate that you have 9 innings to fill, and with any luck, with more R than the other guy.
Lordy I love the spring.
I hate Sunny Delight advertisements. They attempt to convince parents that Sunny D is just like orange juice. Read the label – it’s more like Kool-aid.
So let’s get something straight:
Sunny Delight is to orange juice as Yoo Hoo is to chocolate milk.
Do you still wish on stars? Not just the “falling” ones, but the stars? Maybe the first one you see in the evening? Hoping like damn it’s not a planet?
I do – or rather I find myself doing it with some frequency. And I don’t even use the conventional wisdom of “first star I see tonight” or anything like that.
I find that when I need to make a wish or feel like I need some astral assistance, I look to the heavens. Probably much like our early ancestors. Living out where I live, I can see lots of stars on any given reasonably clear night. Even more when there is no moon.
So tonight I find out that I have a friend who is in trouble. No I don’t know exactly what kind of trouble, but there’s something bad going on that is manifesting itself in his behavior and his relationships. It’s a friend I have (sadly) not kept in close touch with, though I will clearly reach out to him to find out if there is anything I can do. Just listen. Or whatever.
I have never really been the “nurturing” type. And I’m not the bullshit type either. So I try to let my friends know that I am here for them whenever they need me to be. Maybe I’m not active enough about it. Then again, I find it completely annoying when people repeatedly ask me “are you okay?” Drives me nuts. Because most of the people who ask don’t really want to know.
So by being “no bullshit” I think I try to distinguish myself from the people who don’t really want to know — because I do. Not because I want to know but because it seems like you want to tell me…someone…anyone who will listen and not judge. Christ knows that I’m in no place to judge people. Life is life and you get through the day any way you can at the moment.
So this evening I have a friend who is in trouble and I look skyward.
Have you ever heard the sky talk back? I do. Sometimes.
You know how when you see a shooting star and you happen to have a lottery ticket in your pocket that you make a wish. I do that. It’s fine – it’s normal I think.
So tonight I look up to the stars and I ask the heavens to please help my friend. Friends really – I have a few right now who are in bad places. So I ask for help for my friends. Yeah man, I wanna win the lottery.
And the heavens ask me back, “How about if they win the lottery? Wouldn’t that make you jealous? Wouldn’t you wish that for them just so you could somehow benefit?” And the answer, as far as I can tell, is “no.”
I’m not a complete altruist – sure I’d love to be independently wealthy and whatever. And you know what? If you win the lottery and want to pay off all of my debt, I’m sure as hell not going to stop you. But really my life is just fine these days and I have nothing to complain about. And if your life sucks and having a shitload of money would make things significantly better for you, have at it. I would be absolutely delighted for you. Buy me a beer just for fun.
I don’t like to know that people are in pain or having a hard time of it. Especially the people I care very much about. So if there is ever anything I can do, all you have to do is ask.
So maybe when I look up at the stars, what I’m really asking for is for the gods to somehow let my friends know that they can call me or write me or just show up at my door. Because maybe I don’t do a good enough job of that.
I hope the stars were listening tonight. Fuck the lottery. If this is the wish I get, so much the better.
